April 11, 2017 – High Testosterone

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:01 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: Some men with advanced prostate cancer respond to high dose testosterone, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Many treatments for prostate cancer rely on reducing the male hormone testosterone, but research by Sam Denmeade and colleagues at Johns Hopkins has shown paradoxically that for some men with advanced prostate cancer, the hormone can actually have a beneficial effect.

Denmeade: What we’ve been learning is that there is a group of men that when you give them high dose testosterone their cancer shrinks, dies, and they feel better. We don’t know which men at the beginning that is but we find that we can give it safely, so there really is very few side effects, some of the men feel really good and some of the men restore their sexual function and sometimes that response can be very long, a year, two years. Our longest is three years.   :27

Denmeade says finding out the genetic signature or signatures that characterize the men who respond to high dose testosterone is an area of active research. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.