Prostate treatment leads to brain woes
There’s a good reason I don’t think that men with prostate cancer should rush to get it treated. Besides the fact that most prostate cancer isn’t life-threatening, traditional treatment methods of getting rid of it are so invasive and debilitating that they can wreak havoc on a man’s quality of life, initiating everything from chronic incontinence to permanent impotency.
Hormone deprivation therapy isn’t much better. A new study has found that men whose prostate cancer is treated with hormone deprivation therapy could experience memory loss and difficulty in concentrating.
As if incontinence and impotence weren’t bad enough!
The treatment is called androgen depletion therapy, and it’s one of the more common prostate cancer treatments. It was developed because testosterone is thought (incorrectly) to help speed the growth of prostate cancer.
According to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Christian J. Nelson, a lead author of the study, patients “may find it more difficult to hold several pieces of information in their mind at one time.” The study found that between 47 and 69 percent of patients treated with androgen depletion therapy experienced some decline in mental capacity.
That’s a lot of confused men.
Unfortunately, confusion and prostate cancer go hand in hand.
As with all prostate cancer treatments, there seems to be an “Oh well, that’s the way it goes” attitude about this high rate of mental decline. Nelson insisted that “treating the disease is much more important than these subtle cognitive effects.”
But like PSA screening, there’s an iffy-ness to androgen depletion therapy. The main problem is that the therapy continues to be used in situations where the benefits aren’t clear – such as early in the early stages of the disease.
Dr. Durado Brooks of the American Cancer Society says that a muddled mind isn’t the only downside of androgen depletion therapy. Other known effects include fatigue, hot flashes, and anemia. He also said that recent studies have revealed that this treatment can cause an increased risk of fracture and other conditions.
“There is a study that suggests that cardiovascular death rates may be higher among men undergoing this therapy. There is clear evidence that there is an increase in metabolic syndrome with is associate with coronary artery disease and diabetes,” Brooks said.
The kicker is that patients could be experiencing all this for nothing. Many men are being treated with androgen depletion therapies at the outset of the disease, in early and localized stages, even though research has shown that it doesn’t help them live any longer.
As much as I’ve advised you to double and triple check a “positive” PSA screening, it’s equally important to understand the potential lifestyle impact that the various prostate cancer treatments may have in the event that you are, in fact, diagnosed with this cancer.
“Men need to decide whether the potential benefit outweighs the harm of the therapy for them,” Brooks said. This is true for all cancers and diseases, of course. But it seems especially important when it comes to prostate cancer.
