FRIDAY, Jan. 20, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- For men with bladder cancer, androgen suppression therapy may be prophylactic for intravesical recurrence, according to a study published in the February issue of The Journal of Urology.
Masaki Shiota, M.D., Ph.D., from Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, and colleagues examined whether intravesical recurrence is affected by inhibition of androgen signaling in men with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. Data were included for 228 men (32 with and 196 without androgen suppression therapy) receiving androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer or 5α-reductase inhibitor dutasteride for benign prostatic hyperplasia.
The researchers found that intravesical recurrence developed in 12.5 and 30.1 percent of men with and without androgen suppression therapy during a median follow-up of 3.6 and 3.0 years, respectively. Independent significant risk factors for intravesical recurrence on multivariate analysis included multiple tumors, a large tumor, and ever smoking (hazard ratios, 1.82, 2.13, and 2.45, respectively), as well as presence of androgen suppression therapy (hazard ratio, 0.36). In 3.1 percent of men without androgen suppression therapy, tumor progressed to muscle invasive bladder cancer, compared with none of the men with androgen suppression therapy.
"Our study suggests the possibility of androgen suppression therapy as prophylaxis for intravesical recurrence of bladder cancer," the authors write. "Further explorations are warranted of the prophylactic effect of androgen suppression therapy on bladder cancer pathogenesis."
The study was supported by the Takeda Science Foundation Medical Research Promotion Grant and the Daiwa Securities Health Foundation.
Full Text
