Pharmacologic Androgen Deprivation and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors: a Systematic Review. By Romo et al. 2015
Key sentence from the paper: “Although we did not identify any publications that described the effect of ADT on cardiovascular disease risk factors, these data may be available, but are unpublished… In an attempt to identify unpublished data, we contacted all of the corresponding authors and study sponsors who may have these data, but were unsuccessful in acquiring any additional data.”
For the full abstract, see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25753698
Commentary: This paper challenges the growing sense that ADT carries cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk for some patients on ADT. The main point of the paper is that good randomized controlled trials (RCT) linking CVD risk and ADT are virtually non-existent and the data we have, showing such a link, largely come from observational studies.
The authors suggest that older RCT data relevant to a CVD and ADT association likely exist, but haven’t been published. In that regard, it is discouraging to see the lack of collegiality that they ran into when they attempted to get access to unpublished data from other researchers.
This paper can be faulted for only looking at studies from before June of 2013. Good data supporting the ADT and CVD association, particular for patients who have had a previous myocardial infarct (a heart attack), have been published since then and reviewed in recent months in this blog.
Romo ML, McCrillis AM, Brite J, Reales D, Dowd JB, Schooling CM. 2015. Pharmacologic Androgen Deprivation and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors: a Systematic Review. Eur J Clin Invest 45(5):475-484.