Life Insurance Quotes

Study: Prostate cancer drug therapy has no effect on heart disease

12/08/11

A recently released analysis dispelled the idea that a prostate treatment called androgen deprivation therapy leads to death from cardiovascular causes.

The analysis, which was led by Dr. Paul Nguyen of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, observed eight clinical trials of androgen deprivation therapy and found no difference in the rate of death from cardiovascular events in patients who didn't receive the treatment. At the same time, the men who received androgen deprivation therapy were 31 percent less likely to die from prostate cancer.

"Although androgen deprivation therapy has been part of the treatment regimen for several decades, clinicians treating patients with prostate cancer are still understanding the short-term and long-term biological effects," the authors of the study wrote.

Researchers found 255 cardiovascular deaths out of 2,200 patients treated with the therapy, compared to 252 heart-related deaths among 1,941 who were not treated with ADT.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration required the medication to be labeled with a warning in 2010, following studies that linked it to an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular deaths, despite other studies that indicated the medication caused no problems.

Given the uncertainty of many medications' side effects, Americans might look to life insurance to prepare for the future.

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