Please review the patient case and select the best answers to the questions that follow. While reading the case, please click on the embedded links for supplemental information to more thoroughly understand the topic and the answers.
Visit 2
The patient has returned for follow-up and to discuss the results of the laboratory tests ordered after Visit 1. The patient reports that he has noticed slightly improved erections since taking tadalafil 20 mg as needed for his erectile dysfunction (ED) but that his libido is still diminished.
The clinician reviews the laboratory findings for the patient and explains the implications of his below-normal testosterone level. The clinician raises the topic of testosterone therapy and describes the benefits for patients with symptomatic hypogonadism.
The patient expresses apprehension about whether testosterone treatment is safe. The clinician carefully explains that a patient's medical history of prostate cancer has been a longstanding contraindication to testosterone therapy because of the belief that higher serum testosterone levels cause more rapid prostate cancer growth. However, the clinician stresses, there is a lack of a causal connection between testosterone therapy and prostate cancer, and the most recent evidence has called the longstanding paradigm into question.1
Reference
next >
Visit 2
The patient has returned for follow-up and to discuss the results of the laboratory tests ordered after Visit 1. The patient reports that he has noticed slightly improved erections since taking tadalafil 20 mg as needed for his erectile dysfunction (ED) but that his libido is still diminished.
The clinician reviews the laboratory findings for the patient and explains the implications of his below-normal testosterone level. The clinician raises the topic of testosterone therapy and describes the benefits for patients with symptomatic hypogonadism.
The patient expresses apprehension about whether testosterone treatment is safe. The clinician carefully explains that a patient's medical history of prostate cancer has been a longstanding contraindication to testosterone therapy because of the belief that higher serum testosterone levels cause more rapid prostate cancer growth. However, the clinician stresses, there is a lack of a causal connection between testosterone therapy and prostate cancer, and the most recent evidence has called the longstanding paradigm into question.1
Reference
- Morgentaler A, Lipshultz LI, Bennett R, Sweeney M, Avila D Jr, Khera M. Testosterone therapy in men with untreated prostate cancer. J Urol. 2011;185(4):1256-1260.
next >
