#TBT: Men’s Health Month & Differences in Prostate Cancer Treatment

As part of our “Throwback Thursday” blog series, we’re taking a look at a topic that’s currently in the news and tagging it with previous research, videos or commentaries in a relevant way. As the saying goes, “what’s old is new again” – and we hope you enjoy our wonky twist on #TBT.

Significantly more men than women die of most cancers, according to a Men’s Health Network factsheet, “The Silent Health Crisis,” and one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. June is an opportunity to make these statistics less “silent” by participating in Men’s Health Month, a time to raise awareness about men’s health issues and encourage men to seek regular medical advice and early treatment.

When it comes to prostate cancer, it’s important to ask questions about potential treatment options, especially since there is no “one size fits all” approach to treatment. There are many different treatment options available (e.g., active surveillance, surgery, radiation or hormone therapy, chemotherapy), and one approach might work well for one patient, cause side effects in another, or have no effect for someone else.

That’s because each patient is unique thanks to a multitude of factors, and researchers and health care providers widely recognize that men with stage IV prostate cancer (S4PC), in particular, react differently to treatments. What is not well understood are the factors that impact these treatment outcomes, including biological factors such as race, age, or co-morbidities, and nonbiological factors such as geography, diet or social issues.

The National Pharmaceutical Council partnered with the University of Maryland to investigate these factors. The authors chose to study S4PC because these patients experience varying outcomes and side effects from similar treatment approaches.

They conducted a systematic literature review of articles examining the treatment-related impact of individual treatment effects on survival, adverse events or health-related quality of life in S4PC patients. Their findings were published in a 2013 Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research article, “The Emerging Relevance of Heterogeneity of Treatment Effect in Clinical Care: A Study Using Stage IV Prostate Cancer as a Model,” which is also our pick for this week’s #TBT.

The study highlighted the many challenges faced by health care decision-makers because of the lack of evidence regarding individual treatment effects. To address these challenges, the study authors suggest that individual treatment effects should be taken into account by physicians, when applying treatment decisions to diverse populations; by researchers, when designing clinical trials and interpreting the results; by regulatory bodies that approve drugs and might not recognize the positive or negative effects on specific populations; and by payers, to ensure that a wide range of treatment options are available to patients, especially for conditions with diverse treatment effects.

For additional information on prostate cancer and Men’s Health Month, visit:

• The Prostate Cancer Foundation, for information on clinical trials that are being conducted to address these questions for future generations.
• Men’s Health Network, for ideas about activities to do during Men’s Health Month.
• The American Cancer Society, for a list of questions to ask a doctor if diagnosed with prostate cancer.