Penn study links prostate cancer treatment to dementia
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Here's yet another thing for men with prostate cancer to worry about. A second study has found a connection between treatments that target male hormones and dementia.
Earlier research by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University found increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. The new study, from the same institutions, published Thursday in JAMA Oncology, found that patients who had taken androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) had double the risk for a broader range of dementia diagnoses, including Alzheimer's, senile dementia, vascular dementia, and frontotemporal dementia, compared with similar men with prostate cancer who did not have the treatment. The study was based on an analysis of the medical records of more than 9,000 men with prostate cancer from the Stanford University health system from 1994 to 2013. Of those patients, 1,826 had received ADT.
The risk of being diagnosed with dementia in five years was 13.7 percent for men over 70 who had ADT, compared with 6.6 percent in men over 70 who did not. Predictably, the risk was lower in younger men, but the relationship was still the same. In men under 70, 2.3 percent of those who had ADT got a dementia diagnosis, compared with 1 percent of those who had not had the treatment.
About 500,000 men in the United States are getting ADT, which suppresses testosterone, the study said. It is considered a first-line treatment in appropriate men, said Alexander Kutikov, a urological surgeon at Fox Chase Cancer Center. There are no equivalent alternatives.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/health/Penn-study-links-prostate-cancer-treatment-to-dementia.html
Rudy Giuliani and Zell Miller both became raving lunatics after prostate cancer treatments.
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