New Research Contradicts Prior Understanding – Intermittent Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer Inferior to Continuous Therapy

At the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) meeting there was an upsetting plenary presentation made on June 3. Data was presented by principal investigator, Maha Hussain, M.D., F.A.C.P., from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Hussain discussed the findings from the phase III clinical trial SWOG-9346, the largest such study to date in men with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer who were on hormone therapy (ADT).

The study demonstrated that intermittent androgen-deprivation (IAD) therapy is not as good as continuous hormone therapy with regard to a man’s longevity! This finding flies in the face of prior research that has shown that continuous ADT and intermittent ADT are equal to each other.

This study was a seventeen year study led by SWOG, a cancer research cooperative group funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The SWOG network, with funding from the NCI, led an international team in c