To evaluate patients' serum total testosterone levels (STLs) after brachytherapy (BT) for prostate cancer.
We enrolled 102 men who underwent permanent interstitial BT using I125 without androgen deprivation therapy for localized prostate cancer. Seed BT radiation dose was 145 Gy. Patients were followed for 24-60 months after BT. The primary outcome was STL kinetics after BT. Predictors of testosterone decrease were also analyzed.
Median pre-implantation STL was 4.18 ng/mL. STL decreased significantly to a median nadir of 89.4% of baseline (3.72 ng/mL) occurring at 6 months, and then recovered to baseline at 18 months after BT. The group of patients whose STLs fell below 3.00 ng/mL (biochemical hypogonadism) after BT started with lower baseline STLs (median: 3.54 ng/mL) than patients whose STLs did not fall below 3.00 ng/mL (median: 4.90 ng/mL). The group of patients whose STLs decreased by more than 1.00 ng/mL over the study period had significantly higher median baseline STLs (median: 5.05 ng/mL) than the group whose STLs decreased by less than 1.00 ng/mL (median: 3.64 ng/mL).
Although STL decreased significantly after I125-based BT, STL decline after treatment for localized prostate cancer was not large and recovered over time.
Urology. 2019 Feb 01 [Epub ahead of print]
Hisanori Taniguchi, Shigenari Kawakita, Hidefumi Kinoshita, Takashi Murota, Tadashi Matsuda
Department of Urology and Andrology, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. Electronic address: ., Department of Urology and Andrology, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan.