Comorbidity reduces benefits of androgen suppression in prostate cancer
July 20th, 2008 Posted in hormone therapy, radiation therapyThe addition of androgen suppression therapy to radiation therapy for treatment of prostate cancer fails to improve survival among men with serious co-existing illness, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association for January 23.
Recent evidence suggests that androgen suppression therapy increases the risk of cardiovascular events in men of advanced age, lead author Dr. Anthony V. D’Amico of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and his associates note.
To examine the interaction between comorbidity and treatment outcome, they obtained long-term follow-up data from a trial in which men with prostate cancer had been randomly assigned to receive radiation therapy alone or radiation therapy and androgen suppression therapy combined.