Real-life Evaluation of the Effect of ADT in Prostate Cancer Patients in Asia (READT Asia Study)

The prostate gland is a clinically important male accessory sex gland and vital for its production of semen. Prostate cancer (PCa) is now ranked 3th in annual incidence of male cancer and ranked 5th for cancer-related death in men in Hong Kong which accounts for about 10.9 deaths per 100,000 persons. Its incidence is rising rapidly, almost tripled in the past 10 years. As the elderly population continues to increase, the impact of PCa on the men's health and also the burden on health care system will continue to rise. Despite the improvement in awareness of the disease and also increasing use of serum prostate specific antigen, many patients still presented at a late stage that beyond cure by local therapy. Together with those patients suffered recurrent disease after local therapy, many PCa patients required the use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for the control of disease. However, unlike other malignancy, PCa is characterized by its slow progression nature and even for metastatic disease the 5-year survival is upto 20%. Therefore, while ADT can provide effective control of disease, there are increasing evidences suggesting that it can also result in many adverse effects in the patients, and these effects are particular important due to the long survival of these patients. From the western literature, the adverse effects can be quite diverse. Classical side effects after ADT include mood changes, hot flushes, change in cognitive function, loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, osteoporosis and pathological fracture. Also there are more and more evidences showed ADT will also altered the metabolic and cardiovascular status of the patients and resulted in increase in insulin resistance and increase in risk of cardiovascular related mortality. However, there is a lack of data concerning the association between ADT and various complications in the Asian population. Due to the genetic and physiological differences and the experience from studies on female menopause the cardiovascular risk profile may differ between different ethnicities. Reports from Japan suggested the effects of ADT in Japanese were different from Caucasian with better treatment efficacy and lower cardiovascular risk. However, reports from Hong Kong suggested the adverse effects of ADT in Chinese populations were quite similar to the reports in Western world. Moreover, due to the difference in social and cultural background in Asian countries, the usage of different modalities of ADT might be different in different areas, which might also affect the efficacy and outcomes in patients. Therefore, investigator would like to perform a prospective study on the practice and effect of ADT in Asian population to try to clarify the effect of ADT in our regional population.