MedWire News: Elderly men with early-stage prostate cancer who receive hormone therapy before undergoing a procedure to insert radioactive seed implants into the prostate, called brachytherapy, have lower survival rates than those who receive brachytherapy alone, research suggests.

Hormone therapy, also called androgen deprivation therapy, is used to treat prostate cancer by lowering the levels of male hormones to reduce or stop the tumour's growth. Brachytherapy is a procedure in which small radioactive seeds are placed into the prostate to kill the cancer cells while the patient is sedated.

Androgen deprivation therapy is sometimes used to shrink the prostate before brachytherapy treatment of early-stage prostate cancer.

Dr Amy Fox, from the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and team studied medical data on 1709 men, aged at least 70 years, with early-stage prostate cancer who received either hormone therapy plus brachytherapy or brachytherapy alone between 1991 and 2005.

Analysis revealed that men who received hormone therapy before brachytherapy were 20% more likely to die during the period studied than those who received brachytherapy alone.

"Our study shows that for men over 70 [years] with early-stage prostate cancer, androgen deprivation therapy as a form of treatment may do more harm than good," commented Dr Fox.

She concluded: "In older patients, the risks of androgen deprivation need to be carefully weighed by doctors when designing the proper treatment plan."

The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.