Hinyokika kiyo. Acta urologica Japonica
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We report a pilot study on a novel protocol of intermittent androgen deprivation (IAD) treatment of prostate cancer (PC), in which androgen deprivation is restarted when serum prostatic specific antigen (PSA) level reached more than 2 ng/ml and is stopped when PSA level decreased below 0.3 ng/ml. Thirty-two patients (aged 60 to 86 years, median 74 years) with prostate cancer (Stage A in 4 patients, B in 20, C in 1, D in 5, and relapse after radical prostatectomy in 2) were treated with IAD. Median serum PSA prior to the start of endocrine therapy was 15.65 (range 2.67 to 306.3) ng/ml. ⋯ The median duration of first off-phase of IAD was 287 days. There was a significant inverse relation between the duration of the first on-phase and testosterone level measured 4 months after the cessation of first on-phase therapy (R = -0.518). These results suggest that our protocol provides a reasonable length of off-phase duration and that the long term-androgen deprivation phase might delay the recovery of the testicular endocrine function which should be maintained during the off-phase of IAD.