This is a retrospective study of 7252 men treated for prostate cancer at a clinic in Chicago between 1997 and 2013, 7.3% of which were African American (AA).
AA men with prostate cancer in general have more comorbidities (i.e., health problems other than prostate cancer) than Caucasian men. The data here show that the risk of death other than from prostate cancer goes up for AA being treated with ADT for low-risk prostate cancer. Ignoring the fact that some of these men may not have needed cancer treatment at all, ADT for AA men does appear to be inherently more dangerous than for Caucasian men. This may be due in part to AA men’s heightened risk of serious comorbidities, such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. However, this study suggests that this is true even when one corrects statistically for the initial differences in comorbidities.
Kovtun KA, Chen MH, Braccioforte MH, Moran BJ, D'Amico AV. 2016. Race and mortality risk after radiation therapy in men treated with or without androgen-suppression therapy for favorable-risk prostate cancer. Cancer. [Epub ahead of print] 4 August 2016. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27490845