Is prostate hormone therapy linked to a higher risk of depression? According to a study done in the United States (“US”) men who use hormone therapy to treat prostate cancer experience a higher risk of depression as compared to men who use other forms of treatment.
Not counting non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer among men in the US, based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”). Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths among all men.
For the year of 2012, the most current year of analysis, 177,489 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer. In the same year, 27,244 men died of the medical condition. The research shows that a man’s chances of developing prostate cancer increases with age. For example, based on the CDC’s numbers, a man who is 60 years old today has a 5.84% chance of developing prostate cancer by the time he is 70. This breaks down to 5 or 6 men out of 100 who are 60 years old today will have prostate cancer by the time they are 70.
Researchers in the study looked at a common treatment for prostate cancer called androgen deprivation therapy (“ADT”). Because prostate cancer cells use testosterone to spread, ADT is a common treatment used to take away testosterone from tumor cells.
Patients who used the hormone therapy to treat their prostate cancer were 23% more likely to develop depression and 29% more likely to receive inpatient psychiatric treatment compared to men who used other forms of medical treatment for their prostate cancer.
The basis for the study was data on more than 78,000 men aged 66 and older who were treated for prostate cancer from 1992 to 2006. Researchers followed the men for three years and where sure to not include men who had already had a psychiatric diagnosis in the year before their tumors were diagnosed.
To read more about the study and the results, click HERE to read the story in support of this posting.
