?Hot flushes? announce onset of menopausal changes for most women. They accept and anticipate these symptoms.

Drs. Klaas Heinemann and Farid Saad of Berlin, Germany reviewed sparse numbers of prior reports that documented similar symptoms in males. Some sweating episodes occurred after androgen deprivation related to treatment of prostate cancer. Incidence of spontaneous ?hot flushes? in untreated males over age 40 reportedly ranged around 20%. They wanted to study whether incidence of such sweating attacks was similar or different in males and females.

They published their report in the November 2003 edition of European Urology.

They conducted a systematic comparison of incidence of hot flushes/sweating in randomly selected males and females aged 20 ? 59 years. Age and sex groupings were similar, and they surveyed 500 men and 153 women. Their self-designed questionnaire asked 7 questions to predict occurrence of hot flushes. Their definition of this process included: ?Sweating or sensation of constriction, mostly but also without sweaty skin, occurring suddenly without any experienced relation with physical or mental stress mostly at night, but also over the day?.

Their data summaries occurred in brackets of ten years (e.g. 20-29 years, 50 ? 59 years). They made comparisons by use of ?Odds Ratios? (OD). Perhaps their most telling comparison came between the age 20 ? 29 and the 50 ? 59 male brackets, where OD of up to 19.1 were noted for unexplained sweating in older males. Ratios of 1 predict equal occurrences. Also, they saw similar percentages of increasing male and female sweating events as age increased.

The authors feel that their study confirms previous reports that ?hot flushes? occur equally in aging females and males. They suggest that ?key symptoms? of this process for males be identified and used in routine questioning. They also noted that males more often reported sweating in conjunction with physical strain. This was not however, related to advancing age, and they believe that this should not be considered a symptom of hot flushes in males.

From this preliminary incidence study, they developed the hypothesis that ?episodes of sweating might be an important symptom of changes in the course of aging presumably for males just as females?. Further studies must be done.

Eur Urol 2003;44:583-587