On 7 July, Dr Ravishankar Jayadevappa and collaborators published a paper in JAMA Network Open showing an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or dementia in elderly prostate cancer patients receiving androgen deprivation therapy.
Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), frequently termed ‘hormone therapy’, aims to prevent hormones such as testosterone from promoting the growth and spread of prostate cancer cells. However, there is growing concern over possible associations between ADT and cognitive dysfunction, particularly in older men with prostate cancer. To investigate this association, the researchers undertook a retrospective cohort study of >154,000 people with prostate cancer in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Medicare-linked database of the US National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Jayadevappa and colleagues obtained deidentified data from men aged 66 years or older who were diagnosed with localised or advanced prostate cancer between 1996 and 2003. The cohort was followed up until 2013, with dose stratification to analyse potential associations of AD or dementia with ADT dose. Exposure to ADT was associated with an increased risk of AD or dementia, with hazard ratios of 1.14 or 1.20 for AD and dementia respectively. A dose-response relationship was observed across treatment groups, with patients receiving 8 doses or more of ADT at higher risk of AD or dementia diagnosis than those receiving fewer doses of ADT.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2737101
