Association between Androgen Deprivation Therapy and Risk of Dementia in Men with Prostate Cancer

Simple Summary Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is the gold standard treatment for advanced prostate cancer and the subsequent risk of dementia remains controversial. Previous studies were limited by small sample sizes, short follow-up times, and racial differences. In this population-based cohort study, we used the National Health Insurance Database of Taiwan and The Health Improvement Network database of the United Kingdom to retrospectively study 129,126 men with prostate cancer in the United Kingdom (UK) and Taiwan. Compared with the ADT-naive control, patients treated with ADT showed no significant increase in the risk of dementia in both the UK and Taiwan populations. Despite the differences in the populations of the two databases, these results suggest no association between the use of ADT and new-onset dementia. The risk of dementia after androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in patients with advanced prostate cancer (PCa) remains controversial. This study aimed to evaluate the association between ADT and the incidence of dementia in patients with PCa. We identified patients newly diagnosed with PCa in the National Health Insurance Database of Taiwan from 1 January 2002 to 30 June 2016 and in The Health Improvement Network of the United Kingdom (UK) from 1 January 1998 to 31 March 2018. We classified patients with PCa into ADT and ADT-naive groups. Propensity score (PS) methods were used to minimize the differences in characteristics between the groups. We performed a Cox proportional hazard model to obtain the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) to compare the incidence of dementia between the groups. Our ADT group comprised 8743 and 73,816 patients in Taiwan and the UK, respectively, which were matched 1:1 to ADT-naive patients by PS. The incidence rates of dementia in the ADT group were 2.74 versus 3.03 per 1000 person-years in the ADT naive groups in Taiwan, and 2.81 versus 2.79 per 1000 person-years in the UK. There was no statistical difference between ADT and ADT-naive groups (adjusted HR: 1.12; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.87-1.43 in Taiwan and adjusted HR: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.85-1.23 in the UK). We found no association between the incidence of dementia and ADT in patients with advanced PCa in either database. Further studies are warranted to evaluate other possible triggers of incident dementia in patients receiving ADT for advanced PCa.

Automated summary

This population-based cohort study in Taiwan and the UK found no significant increase in the risk of dementia in patients with prostate cancer receiving androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), suggesting no association between the use of ADT and new-onset dementia.