FSH suppression and tumour control in patients with prostate cancer during androgen deprivation with a GnRH agonist or antagonist

What Was Tested

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

Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists suppress follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) to lower levels than GnRH agonists.

This may partially explain the differences between these agents on prostate cancer outcomes.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 610 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, men only.

CS21A evaluated 386 patients, including those previously treated with degarelix (n = 251) who continued to receive degarelix, and those previously treated with leuprolide (n = 135) who crossed-over to receive degarelix.

The associations between measurements were assessed using Spearman's correlation coefficient.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and crossover study.

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

In the crossover set-up each of the patients took both Leuprolide and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

In this post-hoc analysis, FSH and prostate specific antigen (PSA) responses and the impact of cross-over from leuprolide to degarelix were evaluated from a 1-year comparative study (CS21) and its extension study (CS21A).

The impact of class variables on FSH suppression were evaluated using Analysis of Variance.

What Was Measured

Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists suppress follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) to lower levels than GnRH agonists.

This may partially explain the differences between these agents on prostate cancer outcomes.

The subject headings attached to it are Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Drug Substitution, Follicle Stimulating Hormone, Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone, Kallikreins, Leuprolide and Oligopeptides.

Author keywords: Degarelix, prostate cancer and prostate-specific antigen.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Leuprolide and Degarelix in 610 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 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2018 (Scandinavian journal of urology), a journal based in Sweden.

More context: the Leuprolide compound page and the Degarelix compound page, all human trials.