Susan Reed, MD, on the benefits of the MsFLASH clinical trials network

The MsFLASH clinical trials network generated pooled evidence on treating menopause symptoms that remains a practical anchor for clinicians, according to Susan Reed, MD, MPH, MS, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Reed presented the session “Menopause Strategies: Finding Lasting Answers for Symptoms and Health Trials (MsFLASH)” at The Menopause Society Annual Meeting.

Reed described MsFLASH as one of “the big three” menopause research efforts, alongside the SWAN study and the Women’s Health Initiative, and said it was the first and, so far, the last NIH-funded clinical trials network in the area.

“This is an area that I strongly recommend we see greater funding for women’s health,” Reed said.

What the MsFLASH network studied

Funded by the National Institutes of Health from 2008 to 2022, MsFLASH studied women in the late menopause transition and early postmenopause. Across the network, investigators conducted 5 clinical trials with 9 interventions and 8 ancillary studies, enrolling more than 1,300 participants and collecting more than 16,000 specimens, said Reed. The network also included a vaginal health study examining the biology of vaginal symptoms at menopause and produced a patient-facing website.

“The beauty of a clinical trials network allowed us to take all of those women in all of those trials together, pool data on something like hot flashes, pool data on something like sleep, and answer a bigger question,” Reed said.

Pooled findings on hot flashes and sleep

For hot flashes, the non-hormonal therapies evaluated, including the SSRIs and SNRIs escitalopram and venlafaxine, were similar in efficacy to a low-dose oral estradiol formulation at 0.5 mg, Reed said.

“Now that’s a very solid anchor for clinicians to be able to use with their patients,” Reed said.

Because the trials used standardized measures and outcomes across hot flashes, mood, sleep, and sexual function, Reed said, investigators have continued to reanalyze the data to answer additional questions.

Reed S. Menopause Strategies: Finding Lasting Answers for Symptoms and Health Trials (MsFLASH). Session. Presented at: The Menopause Society Annual Meeting. October 20-24, 2026. San Diego, California.