Objective: The concept of antiandrogens as monotherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer is discussed.
Methods: Both Medline and Current Contents were used to identify studies on antiandrogen monotherapy in prostate cancer. We tried to analyze this database critically to establish whether or not there is evidence for using this monotherapy.
Results: In particular, bicalutamide in monotherapy has been compared with castration in large international trials. Results show that antiandrogen monotherapy is inferior to castration in patients with metastatic tumour but the difference in median survival is limited. In locally advanced M0 prostate cancer bicalutamide 150 mg monotherapy seems equivalent to castration in terms of overall survival and time to progression. Analysis of quality of life showed that there is evidence of some benefits from bicalutamide when compared to castration in both sexual interest and physical capacity.
Conclusion: Antiandrogens in monotherapy can be effective and well tolerated. However, more research is needed because none of the available compounds have definitively been proven to be equivalent to castration.