WEDNESDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) -- For men with high-risk prostate cancer undergoing pelvic radiotherapy and hormone therapy, outcomes are similar with long- (36 months) or short- (18 months) duration androgen blockade therapy, according to a study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, held from Feb. 14 to 16 in Orlando, Fla.
Abdenour Nabid, M.D., and Nathalie Carrier, from the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke in Canada, randomized 630 patients with high-risk, node-negative (localized) prostate cancer to receive 36 (group 1; 310 patients) or 18 months (group 2; 320 patients) of androgen blockade therapy (bicalutamide and goserelin), before, during, and after pelvic and prostate radiotherapy.
During a median follow-up of 77 months, the researchers found that 22.9 and 23.8 percent of those in groups 1 and 2, respectively, had died (P = 0.802), with an overall survival hazard ratio of 1.15 (P = 0.398) and a cancer-specific survival hazard ratio of 1.13 (P = 0.153). There was no significant difference between the groups in the five-year overall or disease-specific survival rates or in the 10-year overall or disease-specific survival rates. The biochemical, regional, and distant failures rates were not significantly different between the groups.
"Shorter-term hormone therapy could have a big impact on the lives of men with prostate cancer, reducing the quantity and intensity of its unpleasant side effects as well as treatment costs," Nabid said in a statement.
The study was funded by AstraZeneca, the manufacturer of bicalutamide and goserelin.
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