Testosterone slows prostate cancer recurrence in low-risk patients

[George71]

The team worked with 834 patients undergoing radical prostatectomy. They treated 152 low-risk patients with no evidence of disease with testosterone replacement therapy. After a median of 3.1 years following surgery, they tested the patients for biochemical recurrence of the cancer, as indicated by measurement of the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) levels. They found that the cancer had recurred in only approximately 5% of treated patients, whereas the cancer had recurred in 15% of the patients who did not receive testosterone. Overall, after accounting for differences between the groups, they found nearly a three-fold reduction by three years.

Importance

Thomas Ahlering commented: "This is not what we set out to prove, so it was a big surprise: not only did testosterone replacement not increase recurrence, but it actually lowered recurrence rates. While the testosterone is not curing the cancer per se, it is slowing the growth of the cancer, giving an average of an extra 1.5 years before traces of cancer can be found. We already know that testosterone can help with physiological markers such as muscle mass, better cholesterol and triglyceride levels and increased sexual activity, so this seems to be a win-win".

medicalxpress.com/news/2019...

[sammamish]

I wonder if the same scenario would hold true for high risk hormone naive PCa. I personally am mulling high dose BAT testosterone BEFORE I become castrate resistant, but can find very little in the literature or anecdotally. Any info on this topic would be great.

[George71 in reply to sammamish]

Me too. I'm trying to keep my T levels up. I'm thinking constant super high T levels like Dr. Bob Leibowitz does to his patients after chemo and short stint on ADT.

Currently I'm only taking Avadart no dairy or eggs low red meat -- mostly fish and supplements. I think lowering the PSA doubling time is what matters rather than zero PSA for a year or two and then be CRPC.

[Fairwind]

The clinical trials of the BAT and related treatments proved that most Oncologists are wrong with their blanket fear of testosterone. Testosterone can be manipulated in PC patients in ways that benefit the patient and not aggravating his cancer. Few oncologists will listen to that..

One of the major problems is getting funding for large clinical trials to document this since testosterone is an inexpensive generic drug that can't be patented. Therefore "BIG Pharma" is not interested in sponsoring clinical trials that utilizes a inexpensive generic drug.. They want the $Billion Dollar Payoff$ at the end..

[George71 in reply to Fairwind]

I agree Fairwind, there are natural treatments with T, diet and supplements that are as beneficial toward overall survival as ADT

[j-o-h-n]

Let's remember our fallen military heroes this Memorial Day and always...

j-o-h-n Saturday 05/25/2019 12:38 PM DST