Nguyen and Choueiri found that cardiovascular deaths occurred in 11 percent of the patients who underwent ADT versus 11.2 percent in the control patients – an insignificant difference. ADT did prolong survival, as shown by the finding that all-cause mortality in the treated patients was 37.7 percent compared with 44.4 percent in the control group.
The researchers broke down the results for shorter versus longer duration of treatments, whether patients had undergone surgery or not, and older versus younger age. This further analysis did not uncover any differences in cardiovascular death risk.
The remaining question, said Choueiri, an oncologist at Dana-Farber/Brigham is whether androgen deprivation might increase risk in men with an established history of previous heart disease, but those data weren't available. "That's a subgroup of about 5 or 10 percent of the patients," he said, and merits further study.
"It's still prudent to be cautious with these patients, and have them be evaluated by a cardiologist before starting treatment," Choueiri said.
He added that the findings "don't exonerate ADT from the increased risks of diabetes, insulin resistance, and weight gain. We don't discount that, but there is benefit in ADT for patients with high-risk prostate cancers."
A new study by Paul Nguyen, M.D., and Toni Choueiri, M.D., from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Cente says Hormone-blocking therapy for prostate cancer doesn't raise the risk of fatal heart attacks -- as some recent studies had suggested.
(Photo Credit: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute)
A new study by Paul Nguyen, M.D., and Toni Choueiri, M.D., from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Cente says Hormone-blocking therapy for prostate cancer doesn't raise the risk of fatal heart attacks -- as some recent studies had suggested.
(Photo Credit: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute)
Source: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute