Androgen deprivation therapy for volume reduction, lower urinary tract symptom relief and quality of life improvement in patients with prostate cancer: degarelix vs goserelin plus bicalutamide

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Goserelin and Degarelix, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Study Type--Therapy (RCT) Level of Evidence 1b.

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add?

Who Took Part

The study group was 182 patients.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were older adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, open-label, multicenter and parallel-group.

Because people in this Goserelin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Everyone knew when Goserelin was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

Running at several centres spread the Goserelin study over different clinics and patient groups.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the patients stayed in one arm throughout.

The timeline in the abstract includes 3 months.

What Was Measured

Study Type--Therapy (RCT) Level of Evidence 1b.

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is commonly used as a primary treatment for patients with prostate cancer (PCa) who are not eligible for radical treatment options.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Analysis of Variance, Androgen Antagonists, Anilides, Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols, Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone, Goserelin and Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and multicenter study of Goserelin and Degarelix in 182 patients over 3 months.

Its findings take up roughly 2 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2012 (BJU international), a journal based in England.

More context: the Goserelin compound page and the Degarelix compound page.