'Drug holiday' an option for some prostate cancers

A new study suggests a little time off a drug holiday can cut down on troubling side-effects of prostate cancer treatment for some patients without hastening death.

The Canadian-led research shows that men who were given intermittent courses of drugs that suppress the production of male hormones lived as long as men who received continuous therapy.

But the men on the intermittent course had fewer of the unpleasant side-effects that go along with this type of prostate cancer treatment.

Androgen-suppression therapy, as it's called, can induce hot flashes, impotence, growth of breast tissue, insomnia, weight gain, worsening of diabetes, loss of muscle mass and osteoporosis.

The study looked only at men who did not have metastatic prostate cancer, meaning cancer that had moved to other parts of the body.

It is published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

The work was led by the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, the research arm of the Canadian Cancer Society. The Canadian Cancer Society provided much of the funding for the trial.

About two-thirds of the patients in the trial were Canadians, though trial sites were also located in the United States and Britain.

Dr. Laurence Klotz, one of the leading investigators of the trial, said since the trial was started a number of years ago, many doctors in Canada have adopted intermittent androgen-suppression therapy for their prostate cancer patients.

But Klotz, a prostate cancer specialist at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, says these findings provide support for the move. Klotz said he expects intermittent therapy to become the standard of care for these patients.

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'Drug holiday' an option for some prostate cancers