Acceptability of short term neo-adjuvant androgen deprivation in patients with locally advanced prostate cancer.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Goserelin and Flutamide in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To determine the acceptability of short term neo-adjuvant maximal androgen deprivation (MAD) to patients treated with external beam radiation for locally advanced prostate cancer.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 818 patients taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, men only.

Between 1996 and 2000, 818 patients with locally advanced, but non-metastatic, prostate cancer were entered into a randomised clinical trial (TROG 96.01), which compared radiation treatment alone with the same radiation treatment and 3 or 6 months neo-adjuvant MAD with goserelin and flutamide.

Relevant symptoms, and how troublesome they were to the patient, were scored using a self-assessment questionnaire.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Goserelin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

This was completed by the patient at registration, and at specified times during and after treatment.

Patients taking flutamide had liver function tests checked at regular intervals.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Androgen Antagonists, Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Chemotherapy, Adjuvant, Erectile Dysfunction, Flutamide, Goserelin and Intestines.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Goserelin and Flutamide in 818 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 12 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2003 (Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology), a journal based in Ireland.

More context: the related Goserelin library page, all human trials.