Goserelin and bicalutamide treatments alter the expression of microRNAs in the prostate

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Goserelin.

Although endocrine therapy has been used for decades, its influence on the expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) in clinical tissue specimens has not been analyzed.

Moreover, the effects of the TMPRSS2:ERG fusion on the expression of miRNAs in hormone naïve and endocrine-treated prostate cancers are poorly understood.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 28 men were involved.

PubMed tags the participants as men only.

The researchers used clinical material from a neoadjuvant trial consisting of 28 men treated with goserelin (n = 8), bicalutamide (n = 9), or no treatment (n = 11) for 3 months prior to radical prostatectomy.

Freshly frozen specimens were used for microarray analysis of 723 human miRNAs.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

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.

The timeline in the abstract includes 3 months.

Specific miRNA expression in cancer, benign epithelium and stromal tissue compartments was predicted with an in silico Bayesian modeling tool.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Adenocarcinoma, Anilides, Antineoplastic Agents, Computer Simulation, Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic, Gene Fusion and Goserelin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Goserelin in 28 men over 3 months.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 8 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (The Prostate), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Goserelin compound page, all human trials.