onto polyester film the adhesive coated sheet material of the invention may be in the form of a tape a patch a sheet a dressing or other forms known to the art as will be apparent to one skilled in the art preferably the adhesive coated sheet material will contain about 0 2 to 7 0 mg and preferably about 1 0 to 2 0 mg of estradiol per 5 cm 2 of the sheet material further the sheet material will generally be about 1 to 40 cm 2 and preferably 10 to 30 cm 2 in dimension generally a transdermal patch of the invention will be applied to the skin of a mammal preferably a human and will be replaced with a fresh patch as required to maintain the therapeutic effect those skilled in the art may easily determine the frequency at which the patches of the invention should be replaced to achieve the desired therapeutic effect the following examples are provided to illustrate the invention but are not intended to be limiting thereof parts and percentages are by weight unless otherwise specified flux rates are expressed in units of micrograms of estradiol per cm 2 for the time period specified in the example each result represents the average value of several e g 3 to 5 independent determinations in the examples which follow it is useful to refer to the molecular weight of the adhesive polymer used in the adhesive formulations the comparative molecular weights are determined by measuring the viscosity of dilute solutions of.