Osteoporosis is common and underdiagnosed in Danish men prior to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer, according to a study results published online ahead of print in the Scandinavian Journal of Urology. Vitamin D insufficiency also may be underdiagnosed in these men.
Mads Hvid Poulsen, MD, PhD, of the Odense University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues researchers studied at 105 PCa patients who had a mean age of 70 years. They obtained sociodemographic information and medical history, took blood samples, and performed dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans to measure bone mass density.
Fifty patients (48%) had localized disease and were to be treated with external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) with 3 years of ADT and 55 (52%) had newly-diagnosed disseminated disease and were to be treated with lifelong ADT (52%). The median PSA level was 30.5 g/L and average Gleason score was 7.8.
Continue Reading
Osteoporosis was present in 10% of patients and osteopenia was present in 58%. Furthermore, 37% of patients had vitamin D insufficiency (levels below 50 nmol/L). Smoking was the only factor significantly associated with an increased prevalence of osteoporosis, the researchers reported.
“More awareness regarding osteoporosis and bone health in prostate cancer is needed, and [we] recommend that patients with prostate cancer undergo DXA scanning before starting ADT,” the authors concluded.
