Drug Reduces Hot Flashes Caused by Hormone Therapy

Home , Cyproterone, Cyproterone acetate, Medroxyprogesterone

research highlights prostate cancer Drug reduces hot flashes caused by hormone therapy medroxyprogesterone should be used to of gonadotropin-releasing hormone by multiplying the number of episodes by treat the unpleasant hot flashes that some analogs, such as leuprorelin, which have the average severity reported. men experience as a result of androgen been reported to cause hot flashes in after 4 weeks of treatment, the median suppression therapy for prostate cancer. up to 80% of patients. Previous studies daily score had decreased significantly for such is the recommendation of French have identified a number of potential all three treatment groups; in total researchers who compared the effect of treatments, but there are very few data 219 patients (71%) reported an three medications on the frequency and comparing these agents in men with improvement in score of at least 50%, severity of hot flashes in these patients. prostate cancer. “we designed this and 70 men no longer experienced hot Hormone therapy for advanced study to assess the drugs with the most flashes. the drop in daily score was prostate cancer typically takes the form convincing previous evidence of good significantly larger in patients assigned response rates and tolerance ... with the to the hormone treatments than in those aim of producing directly comparable who took venlafaxine. data to help guide therapeutic no significant difference was observed choices, since there are no clear between response to cyproterone and recommendations in this field,” to medroxyprogesterone. However, explain the authors. cyproterone is a recognized androgen the multicenter, randomized, double- deprivation agent used to treat blind trial included 311 men who, during patients with prostate cancer, which an initial 6-month period of leuprorelin raises concerns about interference. therapy, experienced 14 or more hot For this reason, the authors suggest flashes in the week before assessment, that medroxyprogesterone should be or directly requested treatment owing considered the standard treatment for to discomfort. Patients were randomly men who suffer hot flashes on androgen assigned to receive either the progestagen suppression therapy. medroxyprogesterone (n = 108), the steroidal antiandrogen cyproterone Sarah Payton (n = 101), or the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor venlafaxine (n = 102). Original article Irani, J. et al. Efficacy of venlafaxine, individuals were assessed by self- medroxyprogesterone acetate, and cyproterone acetate evaluation (using the mayo Clinic hot for the treatment of vasomotor hot flushes in men taking flash diary) at inclusion, randomization, gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues for prostate cancer: a double-blind, randomised trial. Lancet Oncol.

orem/Dreamstime and 4, 8 and 12 weeks after starting r doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(09)70338-9 © treatment. a daily score was calculated