Does Androgen-Deprivation Therapy Increase Risk of Heart Failure in Men With Prostate Cancer?
Posted: Monday, December 17, 2018
Men with prostate cancer treated with androgen-deprivation therapy may be at an increased risk of heart failure compared with those who did not receive androgen deprivation, according to a study published in The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. However, despite the fact that both the full cohort study and the propensity score–matched study showed a higher risk of heart failure associated with androgen-deprivation therapy, the authors noted the balance between costs and benefits of the treatment may not be altered.
“We recommend that clinicians should counsel their patients regarding modifiable heart failure risk factors, suggest they improve their lifestyle, and further provide relevant cardiovascular examination for [patients with prostate cancer] receiving androgen-deprivation therapy,” Hui-Han Kao, MBA, and colleagues, of the National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, concluded.
Using data from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005, the authors identified patients with prostate cancer who had received androgen-deprivation therapy (n = 1,244) and a comparison group of those who had not (n = 1,806). Each patient was tracked for 1 year following the index date.
The incidence rate of heart failure was 4.00 per 100 person-years among men treated with androgen-deprivation therapy compared with 1.87 among those who did not receive the treatment. The hazard ratio of heart failure between the treatment and comparison groups was 1.72. In the propensity score–matched cohort study, the adjusted hazard ratio for heart failure among treated patients was 1.92 compared with the propensity score–matched comparison group.
