dementia, only that the two are associated.
The investigators also found that men on this type of therapy had a 10% greater risk of seeking psychiatric services.
The risk for dementia increased as the length of therapy increased, the researchers noted. Men on androgen-deprivation therapy for six months had a 25% increased risk for any kind of dementia and a 37% increased risk for Alzheimer’s, the findings showed.
Being on hormone therapy longer than six months increased the risk for dementia and using mental health services even more, Tully said.
For the study, Tully and his colleagues collected data on more than 100,400 men enrolled in Medicare. The men were diagnosed with prostate cancer between January 1992 and December 2009.
Given these findings, “physicians should be telling their patients about that risk and should probably perform regular screening,” Tully said.
One urologist, however, doesn’t think patients need to be told about this