ADT side effects: Does age and duration of ADT matter?

Influence of Age on Incident Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease Among Prostate Cancer Survivors Receiving Androgen Deprivation Therapy. By Morgans et al. 2014 

 

Key sentence from the paper: “…treatment with prolonged ADT was associated with an increased risk of incident diabetes mellitus, over age 76, and cardiovascular disease, over age 74... Men younger than this and men treated with short term ADT did not experience this increased risk. The risk of developing [diabetes mellitus] or [cardiovascular disease] was higher among men with at least one comorbid illness...

 

For the full abstract, see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25134939

 

Commentary: This paper refines the grand results from the previously blogged paper. The risk of cardiovascular disease (as well as diabetes) is not the same for all men. If there is some good news here, it is that younger men and those who go on ADT only for short term, do not have the same risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes as older men, or men who are on ADT for a longer term. 
These new results have some implication in selecting patients for ADT… a topic discussed in earlier blog postings this year.  Specifically “physicians should carefully monitor men receiving prolonged ADT and recognize that older men, especially those with comorbidities, are at an increased risk of developing [diabetes mellitus] and [cardiovascular disease].”

  

Morgans, A. K., Fan, K. H., Koyama, T., Albertsen, P. C., Goodman, M., Hamilton, A. S., et al. Influence of Age on Incident Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease Among Prostate Cancer Survivors Receiving Androgen Deprivation Therapy. Journal of Urology. [Epub ahead of print] 3 November 2014.