As usual, we are confronted with a new contradiction. It has been believed that earl hormone therapy (ADT) in men with a biochemical recurrence (PSA only) would benefit from immediate ADT. A study released from the Harvard School of Public Health contradicts this assumption, but the study lacks follow up beyond 10 years.
They evaluated 2,012 men whose prostate cancer relapsed, those who delayed hormone treatment were no more likely to die over five and 10 years than those who started therapy immediately. “For both groups and both outcomes, the survival is very similar,” said Xabier Garcia-Alben, an epidemiologist at Harvard and a study author. The researchers used a 14,000-patient database from the University of California at San Francisco that tracks men with prostate cancer to assess the benefits of therapy.
The results were released yesterday and the actual data will be available for review at the up-coming American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) meeting.
In the study, 85.1 percent