Taiwan: The use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in men with metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) is tied to a reduced risk of thyroid disease development, says a recent study. The study was published in the Wiley journal Prostate.
Androgen hormones, such as testosterone are usually required by prostate cancer cells for their growth. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) reduces the levels of androgen hormones, with surgery or drug, to prevent the growth of prostate cancer cells. Androgen deprivation therapy also called androgen suppression therapy, is an antihormone therapy which is the major treatment for metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) but not much research has been done on the effects of ADT on thyroid diseases.

Against the above backgrdound, Jui-Ming Liu and colleagues conducted the population-based, nationwide cohort study with an objective to analyze the association between ADT and the development of thyroid diseases.
For this purpose, the researchers utilized the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) with 17,192 PCa patients between 1997 and 2013. The association between ADT and the development of thyroid diseases was analyzed using Cox proportional hazards models and propensity score-matched analysis.
A total of 17,192 newly diagnosed men with PCa were selected from the NHIRD.
Based on the study, the researchers reported the following findings:
· There were 6200 ADT users and 6200 non-ADT users after 1:1 propensity score matching.
· There was a significantly decreased risk of thyroid diseases among ADT users compared with non-ADT users (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR): 0.79).
· Further analysis showed a significantly decreased risk of thyroid diseases with increasing ADT duration.
"Our findings showed that ADT use in men with PCa was associated with a decreased risk of thyroid disease development," the researchers concluded.
Reference:
Liu JM, Chen YT, Wu CT, Hsu WL, Hsu RJ. Androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer and the risk of thyroid diseases. Prostate. 2022 May;82(7):809-815. doi: 10.1002/pros.24323. Epub 2022 Feb 28. PMID: 35226371.