Men with more advanced prostate cancer often undergo treatment to reduce levels of testosterone, which drives tumor growth. Now, a new study shows that this so-called androgen deprivation therapy can affect mental performance.

When such therapy “is used less than one year, the effects are mostly reversible,” Dr. Eeva K. Salminen from University of Turku, Finland, told AMN Health. “They disappear when the treatment is stopped.”

However, mental deficits “become persistent with long-term treatment, over two years.”

Salminen and colleagues measured the cognitive performance of 23 men with prostate cancer on 31 tests, before they started androgen deprivation therapy and at 6 and 12 months after. The team reports their findings in the medical journal Cancer

Visual memory and recognition speed of numbers were significantly impaired at 6 months, they found, whereas verbal fluency was improved at 12 months.

“When androgen deprivation is continued for less than 12 months, detrimental cognitive performance effects should be reversible and minor,” the investigators point out. However, the effects could be different in men with any underlying psychiatric or neurologic illnesses.

A man being treated for prostate cancer “should discuss this with his doctor and his spouse,” Salminen advised. “Both need to understand that temporary worsening of cognitive functioning is not related to cancer, but to the treatment.”

SOURCE: Cancer, April 1, 2005.