© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press.
EDITORIAL |
Timing of Androgen Deprivation Therapy: Some Questions Answered, Others Not
Correspondence to: Paul F. Schellhammer, MD, Eastern Virginia Medical School, 6333 Center Dr., Bldg. 16, Norfolk, VA 23502 (e-mail: schellpf@evms.edu).
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The objective of the article by Shahinian et al. (1) in this issue of the Journal was to determine the factors involved in the use of androgen deprivation therapy—specifically, to distinguish patient and tumor characteristics from physician decision making as a determinant for the use of androgen deprivation therapy. For this retrospective study, they linked the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) and Medicare databases to identify 1802 urologists who provided care within 1 year of prostate cancer diagnosis for 61 717 patients who were older than 66 years.
Of the 61 717 patients, 31.4% received androgen deprivation therapy within 6 months of diagnosis. The study population was chronologically divided into two cohorts: those patients diagnosed in the years 1997–1999 and those diagnosed between January 1, 1992, and January 1, 1997. This division was made because information from randomized control