CV mortality and androgen deprivation

Big day for RT and related studies in the JCO this week -

RTOG 85-31 - randomized trial in cT3, pT3 or pN1 patients with prostate cancer, randomized to RT alone vs RT + indefinite ADT. The final results showed a survival benefit to the RT + ADT arm.

This report is in regards to the potential cardiovascular effects of ADT, and thus patients were analyzed for CV mortality. No difference were seen among the arms, in fact the trend was in the wrong direction.

Caveat here is that these were high risk patients, and had a relatively high prostate cancer specific mortality (16 and 22% at 10 years) as a competing risk. This might not be applicable to lower risk disease.

Link