Testosterone therapy may reduce prostate cancer risk due to testosterone deficiency at a young age via stabilizing serum testosterone levels. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Objectives: To investigate whether testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) reduces prostate cancer (PCa) risk via stabilizing serum testosterone (T) levels beyond simply elevating serum T levels and whether TRT reduces PCa risk due to low serum T levels at a young age.Methods: We analyzed data of 776 hypogonadal men from a urology center in Bremerhaven, Germany through 2004-2016 to investigate whether the TRT group has more stable T levels and whether TRT can reduce the risk of PCa due to low serum T levels at an early age. We derived an index, Maximum Decline of T Relative to Baseline (MDRB), to describe the magnitude of T declines and variations over time.Results: We found the TRT group has more stable serum T levels (e.g. smaller drop-offs) during the follow-up period as compared to the non-TRT group, and the mean of MDRB is significantly higher in the untreated group (1.553 nmol/L VS 0.013 nmol/L; p-value < .001). TRT significantly reduces the risk of PCa associated with T deficiency at a young age (p-value = .00087).Conclusions: TRT may reduce PCa risk via maintaining serum T levels within individual's normal range; T surveillance may be needed for males who have low serum T levels at a young age to monitor abnormal variations of T levels and ensure timely treatment when necessary to reduce PCa risk.

published proceedings

  • Aging Male

altmetric score

  • 8.95

author list (cited authors)

  • Zhang, X., Zhong, Y., Saad, F., Haider, K. S., Haider, A., Clendenin, A. G., & Xu, X.

citation count

  • 6

complete list of authors

  • Zhang, Xiao||Zhong, Yan||Saad, Farid||Haider, Karim Sultan||Haider, Ahmad||Clendenin, Angela G||Xu, Xiaohui

publication date

  • January 2020