Antihormone therapy linked with higher heart failure risk in prostate cancer patients

Androgen deprivation therapy was associated with a 72 percent higher risk of heart failure in a study of patients with prostate cancer.

In the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology study, incidence rates of heart failure per 100 person-years within a 1-year follow-up period were 4.00 and 1.89 for androgen deprivation therapy users and nonusers, respectively. (A person-year is the number of years of follow-up multiplied by the number of people in the study.) The study included data from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005 on 1244 patient who received androgen deprivation therapy and 1806 patients who did not.

"The results of our study provide information for prostate cancer patients to be aware of the potential heart failure risk of receiving androgen deprivation therapy," the authors wrote. "We recommend that clinicians should counsel their patients regarding modifiable heart failure risk factors, suggest they improve their lifestyle, and further provide relevant cardiovascular examination for prostate cancer patients receiving androgen deprivation therapy."