LONDON (Reuters Health) - Organizers of a big British trial of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) said Friday that no new patients would be recruited for the study while experts consider a US study showing the therapy increases the risk of breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and heart disease.  Britain's Medical Research Council (MRC) said it would set up an independent international team to review the results of the American Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial of 16,000 women taking combined HRT that was stopped earlier this month.

"The MRC has a duty to safeguard the well-being of women who have volunteered for the UK WISDOM study. We must be absolutely satisfied that it is right to press ahead in the longer term with the study in the light of the WHI trial results," said Professor Sir George Radda, chief executive of the MRC.

An MRC spokeswoman said the trial would continue but no new patients would be recruited until the committee of independent advisers reports back to the MRC in October.

WISDOM, which stands for the Women's International Study of Long Duration Oestrogen after Menopause, began in 1999 and has already recruited 5,000 British women.

It is hoped that eventually over 16,000 postmenopausal women in the UK, aged 50 to 69, and a further 6,000 from Australia and New Zealand will be involved.

Scientists in charge of the 20 million trial said last week that there were "no strong ethical or scientific reasons to stop the trial" and that there were "still important questions about the balance of risks and benefits from taking HRT long-term that have not yet been answered."

But the MRC said in a statement Friday that there was a "need to better understand" why the WHI trial steering committee had decided to stop the combined HRT arm of their study.