A meta analysis study where thousands of medical records were reviewed suggests that prostate cancer patients who are treated with androgen deprivation face a nearly two-fold increase in the rate of Alzheimer's disease
The study, by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine is an example of these kinds of analytical studies that take large amounts of data from major medical institutions, sort it and crunch the numbers to reveal trends or other findings.
The paper was published online Dec. 7 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Nigam Shah, MBBS, PhD, associate professor of biomedical informatics research at Stanford, is the senior author. The lead author, Kevin Nead, MD, is a resident at the University of Pennsylvania who got his medical degree at Stanford.
Testosterone can promote the growth of prostate tumors so androgen deprivation therapy to lower testosterone has been a standard approach for decades. More than half a million men in the US are currently receiving ADT for prostate cancer.