To read this blog on the website and have access to subscribing and older posts click here. What if you could avoid all of the well-known side effects of surgery or radiation and just take hormone therapy? (aka Androgen Deprivation Therapy or ADT) Given the incredible power of the PSA value to drive thinking of both physicians and patients, this question makes a lot of sense. >95% of patients will have a PSA response to ADT, usually in the form of GnRH agonists (e.g. Lupron, Zoladex, Trelstar, etc) or antagonists (Firmagon, Plenaxis) You might imagine that dropping the PSA would be all that is needed in some men and if they didn’t have too many side effects (weight gain, hot flashes, muscle weakness) they would benefit from the treatment.
A study just reported looked at 3435 men treated in this way between 1995 and 2008 to determine if such treatment would reduce death from prostate cancer and compared them to 11735 men who did not receive such treatment. The age ranged from 35 to >80 and as you might suspect, there was a statistically significant tendency to use treatment in older individuals, in men with higher PSA at diagnosis, and in those with higher Gleason scores. Anyone who received radiation or surgery within the first year after treatment was excluded from the analysis. The bottom line is that there was no effect of using such treatment. To quote the authors, “Our main conclusion is that PADT does not seem to be an effective strategy as an alternative to no therapy among men diagnosed with clinically localized PCa who are not receiving curative-intent therapy. The risks of serious adverse events and the high costs associated with its use mitigate against any clinical or policy rationale for PADT use in these men.”
This study adds to the complexities surrounding prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment. Screening and treating patients with surgery or radiation after age 65 may not produce any positive results in the large screening studies, or at the least, you have to treat a significant number of men who would not need treatment to save one life. While you can make the PSA go down with ADT, it also does not save any lives. Such is the challenge of whom to diagnose, whom to treat, and how to best treat anyone who you think does need treatment. On this blog you will find many entries on these issues, and as I have stated before, when you ask men who are dealing with the disease, they virtually all think their treatment either saved their life or was given too late – illustrating the difference between a population and an individual view. The silver lining is that whether you are diagnosed with pca before you die or not, regardless of treatment choice, you are more likely to die from something else.
prost8blog 
Thanks for adding the “solver lining” sentence at the end. 5 years ago when mets were found I would not have believed that I will likely die of something else. Now I am convinced since new drugs have come on the market. Might as well save a bunch of ADT treatment side effects in these men too.
Meant “silver lining” of course. Autocorrect got me again.
“There is no way to get out of life alive.”
The great economist, John Maynard Keynes, said: “In the long run, we’re all dead.” A companion quote from a scientist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: “Studies have shown that the worldwide death rate is holding steady at 100%.”