Evaluation of total versus partial androgen blockade in the treatment of advanced prostatic cancer.

In order to evaluate the proposed benefit of complete androgen blockade in the treatment of patients with advanced prostatic cancer, we initiated a multicenter prospective and randomized study. At the time of this report 99 patients with newly diagnosed, previously untreated prostatic cancer were randomly distributed to one of the following treatments: group I, orchiectomy plus antiandrogen Flutamide; group II, depot LH-RH analog Zoladex plus Flutamide; group III, orchiectomy alone, and group IV, Zoladex alone. Our preliminary data fail to demonstrate a superiority of total androgen blockade over partial androgen blockade in the treatment of patients with advanced cancer of the prostate.