Is there any harm in using ADT as a first line treatment for PCa?

Patterns of declining use and the adverse effect of primary androgen deprivation on all-cause mortality in elderly men with prostate cancer. By Sammon et al. 2014 

 

Key sentence from the paper: “… ADT should not be used as a primary treatment for men with prostate cancer that has not spread beyond the prostate.

 

For the full abstract, see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25457017

  

Commentary: This is another retrospective study of a large the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry (commonly known as the SEER) database. The studying includes data on 17,873 men who received ADT as a primary cancer treatment between the years of 1992 and 2009. This study adds to the growing concern that the adverse side effects of ADT often outweigh the benefits. What it reminds us of is the statement that most men die with prostate cancer rather than from prostate cancer per se. Overuse of ADT may in part account for that.

 

Sammon, J.D., Abdollah, F., Reznor, G., Pucheril, D., Choueiri, T.K., Hu, J.C., Kim, S.P., Schmid, M., Sood, A., Sun, M., Kibel, A.S., Nguyen, P.L., Menon, M., Trinh, Q.D., 2014. Patterns of declining use and the adverse effect of primary androgen deprivation on all-cause mortality in elderly men with prostate cancer. European Urology. [Epub ahead of print] 29 October 2014.