Quality of life of 1276 elderly patients with prostate cancer, starting treatment with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist: results of a French observational study

This French observational, longitudinal, prospective study described the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of elderly men (>= 75 years old) with prostate cancer after initiating gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist therapy. At baseline and 3-6 months after baseline, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer quality of life questionnaire-core 30 (QLQ-C30) and prostate-specific (QLQ-PR25) questionnaires were completed by patients. Data from 1276 patients were analyzed. At baseline, mean (+/-SD) age was 80 (+/-4.1) years, 29.1% of patients had Gleason scores >= 8 and 24.9% had metastases. At baseline, increasing age, presence of metastasis and presence of comorbidity had a negative impact on QLQ-C30 and QLQ-PR25 scores. At follow-up, improvement in emotional-functioning (2.8; p<0.001), social-functioning (1.7; p = 0.011), global HRQoL (1.6; p = 0.029), sleep-disturbance (- 2.1; p = 0.011), appetite-loss (-4.0; p<0.001) and pain (-4.1; p<0.001) QLQ-C30 scores were observed. In addition, there was a worsening in treatment-related symptom (8.6; p<0.001), sexual-activity (-5.5; p<0.001) and sexual-functioning (-22.6; p<0.001) QLQ-PR25 scores, and an improvement in urinary symptoms (-3.7; p<0.001) and incontinence aid (-2.9; p-0.023) QLQ-PR25 scores. This study shows that, apart from the expected impact on sexual functioning domains, HRQoL is not adversely affected by 3-6 months of GnRH agonist therapy in older men with prostate cancer.