Men with low levels of the male sex hormone testosterone need not fear that testosterone replacement therapy will increase their risk of prostate cancer.
This is the finding of an analysis of nearly a quarter-million medical records of mostly white men in Sweden, research led by investigators at 嘿嘿视频鈥檚 Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. The international team will present these results on May 9 at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in San Diego.
In the study, researchers found that, as a group, men prescribed testosterone for longer than a year had no overall increase in risk of prostate cancer and, in fact, had their risk of aggressive disease reduced by 50 percent.
鈥淏ased on our findings, physicians should still be watching for prostate cancer risk factors鈥攕uch as being over the age of 40, having African-American ancestry, or having a family history of the disease鈥攊n men taking testosterone therapy, but should not hesitate to prescribe it to appropriate patients for fear of increasing prostate cancer risk,鈥 says lead study investigator and 嘿嘿视频 urologist Stacy Loeb, MD.
Loeb points out that much of the concern over cancer risk is that, as part of standard therapy for advanced prostate cancer, tumor growth is decreased by drugs that drastically reduce rather than increase male hormones. 鈥淏ut when used appropriately by men with age-related low testosterone who are otherwise healthy, testosterone replacement has been shown to improve sexual function and mood.鈥
The researchers say use of testosterone therapy鈥攖aken by mouth, gel patch, or injection to treat 鈥渓ow T鈥濃攈as skyrocketed in the past decade. Its popularity is a consequence, experts say, of an aging 鈥渂oomer鈥 population and heavy drug industry marketing, and has come about despite its unknown, long-term health risks. According to some surveys, use of testosterone therapy has more than tripled since 2001, with more than 2 percent of American men in their 40s and nearly 4 percent of men in their 60s taking it. Testosterone levels drop naturally by about 1 percent per year in men past their 30s.
Specifically, the current study found that 38,570 of the men whose records were examined developed prostate cancer between 2009 and 2012. Of these men, 284 had prescriptions for testosterone replacement therapy before they were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Their records were compared with 192,838 men who did not develop prostate cancer, of whom 1,378 had used testosterone therapy.
Researchers noted that while their initial analysis showed an uptick of 35 percent in prostate cancer in men shortly after starting therapy, the increase was only in prostate cancers that were at low risk of spreading and was likely a result from more doctor visits and biopsies performed early on. The authors stressed that the long-term reduction in aggressive disease was observed only in men after more than a year of testosterone use, and the risk of prostate cancer did not differ between gels and other types of preparations.
鈥淥verall, our study suggests that what is best for men鈥檚 health is to keep testosterone levels balanced and within a normal range,鈥 says Loeb, who suggests that men with testosterone levels below 350 nanograms per deciliter and symptoms should seek medical advice about whether they should consider testosterone therapy.
For the study, researchers matched and analyzed data from the National Prostate Cancer Register and the Prescribed Drug Register in Sweden. The country is one of the few in the world that collects detailed information on cancer and medication prescriptions for its entire population, and for which no comparable North American data source exists.
Loeb says the team next plans further studies to determine why low testosterone levels might trigger aggressive prostate cancer and why maintaining normal levels may protect against aggressive disease.
Funding support for the study, which took two years to complete, was provided by grants from the Swedish Research Council (825-2012-5047) and the Swedish Cancer Society (130428). Additional funding support was provided by the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center and the Louis Feil Charitable Lead Trust.
Besides Loeb, another 嘿嘿视频 investigator involved in the study was urologist Joseph Alukal, MD. Other study investigators were Yasin Folkvaljon, BSc, at the Regional Cancer Center at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden; Jan-Erik Damber, MD, PhD, at the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden; Mats Lambe, MD, PhD, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden; and principal investigator P盲r Stattin, MD, PhD, at both Uppsala University and Umea University in Umea, Sweden.
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