Our retrospective study, focuses on 307 patients presenting with a PSA > 20 who were treated with external beam radiotherapy and androgen deprivation (AD) at the BC Cancer Agency between 1994 and 2000.  The analysis was conducted to determine potential differences in outcomes according to the duration of androgen deprivation therapy.  Two groups were compared:  Short term AD (<12 months) vs long term AD  (>12 months).  

Our results show that androgen deprivation administered for a duration longer than a year (>12 months) is associated with improved biochemical control (bNED), improved cause specific survival (CSS) and improved overall survival (OS) independently  of Gleason score and tumour stage at presentation.

Bibliographical reference:

Berthelet E et al.: "Long-term androgen deprivation therapy improves survival in prostate cancer patients presenting with prostate-specific antigen levels > 20 ng/mL", Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2005 Nov 1;63(3):781-7