Improving Patient-Important Outcomes With Testosterone Replacement in Hypogonadal Men With a Prior History of Cancer
The overall goal of this study is to evaluate the effect of a testosterone drug called Depo-Testosterone (or 'testosterone cypionate'), an FDA-approved drug for improving fatigue, sexual function, quality of life, body composition, muscle strength, and physical activity in young cancer survivors who report fatigue and have low testosterone. Main hypothesis is that Testosterone administration in young male cancer survivors who are in remission for at least 1 year, report cancer-related fatigue and have symptomatic testosterone deficiency will be associated with greater improvements in fatigue scores compared with placebo.
• Cancer survivors who have received chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy for their cancer and are now in remission for at least one year
• Non-hormone-dependent cancer, including most solid tumors, lymphomas and leukemias
• Age: 18-54 years
• Serum testosterone, measured by mass spectrometry (gold standard method), of \<348 ng/dl and/or free testosterone \<70 pg/ml. The lower limits of the normal range for total testosterone in healthy young men (age 19-40 years), is 348 ng/dL and the lower limits of free testosterone is \<70 pg/ml in the Framingham Heart Study sample97. Therefore, young symptomatic men with total testosterone \<348 ng/dl could be considered testosterone deficient. As sex hormone binding globulin levels may be elevated in some men with cancer (resulting in elevation in total testosterone level), some of these symptomatic men may still be hypogonadal despite having total testosterone above this cut-off limit. However; their free testosterone levels may still be below the lower limit of normal. Thus, we will also include men with free testosterone \<70 pg/mL.
• Self-reported fatigue. We have selected these symptoms because they are commonly reported in male cancer survivors. Fatigue will be defined as a score on Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F) subscale of \<40, which best divides cancer patients from the general population with 84% accuracy, and was used as the cut-off for the NIA-funded 50-million-dollar testosterone trial (The T-Trial).
• Ability and willingness to provide informed consent.