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It is unclear whether androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) to reduce prostate size prior to radiation therapy (brachytherapy) is beneficial in African-American men with prostate cancer (PCa).
To explore, researchers carried out a retrospective study looking at 7,252 men with low-risk or favourable intermediate-risk PCa who underwent brachytherapy with (n=1,501) or without neoadjuvant ADT.
Over a median follow-up of eight years, the risk of all-cause (hazard rati0 [HR]: 1.77) or other-cause mortality (HR: 1.86) was significantly higher among African-American men compared with non-African American men who received ADT. But among men not receiving ADT, mortality risks were comparable between African Americans and non-African Americans.
Writing in Cancer (online, 4 August 2016)[1]
, the researchers say that ADT may shorten survival in African-American men with favourable-risk PCa, and the treatment should therefore be reserved for African-American men with higher risk disease.
References
[1] Kovtun KA, Chen M-H, Braccioforte MH et al. Race and mortality risk after radiation therapy in men treated with or without androgen-suppression therapy for favorable-risk prostate cancer. Cancer 2016. doi: 10.1002/cncr.30224
