Testosterone bounce predicts favorable prognoses for prostate cancer patients treated with degarelix

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundTo clarify the clinical roles of changes in testosterone (T) levels with a cut‐off level of 20 ng/dL as predictive factors for prostate cancer patients treated with degarelix acetate.MethodsA total of 120 prostate cancer patients who received hormone therapies with gonadotropin‐releasing hormone antagonist degarelix acetate were retrospectively analyzed. The predictive values of nadir T levels, max T levels, T bounce, and other clinical factors were evaluated for overall survival (OS), cancer‐specific survival (CSS), and progression‐free survival (PFS). T bounce was defined as satisfying both nadir serum T levels of <20 ng/dL and max serum T levels of ≥20 ng/dL during hormone therapies.ResultsIn 120 prostate cancer patients, 16 (13%) patients did not achieve nadir T < 20 ng/dL, and 76 (63%) patients had max T ≥ 20 ng/dL. The median times to nadir T and max T are 108 and 312 days, respectively. T bounce was shown in 60 (50%) patients and is associated with favorable prognoses both for OS (p = 0.0019) and CSS (p = 0.0013) but not for PFS (p = 0.92). While in the subgroup analyses of the patients with the progression of the first‐line hormone therapies, T bounce predicts favorable OS (p = 0.0015) and CSS (p = 0.0013) after biochemical recurrence.ConclusionsThe present study revealed that T bounce with cut‐off levels of 20 ng/dL is a promising biomarker that predicts OS and CSS for prostate cancer patients treated with degarelix acetate.