And overall, the effect was pretty small, 2.6 points on the female sexual function inventory. 75% of women had low sexual function at baseline, this number decreased to 67% with transdermal estrogen treatment, that’s a significant improvement but it also means that you would need to treat about 15 women with transdermal estrogen to get one person to respond.

In fact, subgroup analysis showed that the only women who saw benefit were the group that had low sexual function at baseline. That said, they were in the majority.

So we have clear, if modest, results from this trial. What is unclear is whether patients start to see estrogen as a legitimate treatment for low sexual function, or the sexual benefits of estrogen as simply a pleasant side-effect.