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Prostate Cancer Therapy Ineffective, Leads to Impotence

The March 20, 2002 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that a recent study found there is no proof that a specific type of hormone therapy for prostate cancer works. To add even more insult, the men who had the therapy were more than twice as likely to become impotent when compared to men who didn’t.

The therapy is called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The goal of ADT is to lower or completely eliminate the levels of male hormones which are thought to promote prostate tumor growth. In ADT, drugs are given that prevent the production of the male hormone testosterone.

Dr. James Talcott is an assistant professor of medicine and director at the Center for Outcomes Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. In a related editorial he says, “ADT alone isn’t recommended for patients with localized prostate cancer anywhere in the medical literature. It is an unproven use of therapy.”

Talcott’s concern comes from the fact that the number of men undergoing ADT treatment is considerably higher now than the estimated 20,000 doing so in 1996. Patients under ADT treatment “really need to understand that ADT has down sides, and those down sides aren’t well-studied and the drugs are being used in situations beyond where they’ve been proven effective.”

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