Pfizer’s Neurontin® (gabapentin): Can Reduce Hot Flashes in Men on Prostate Cancer Treatment

And I thought only (menopausal) women experience hot flashes!

Apparently, men who are undergoing anti-hormonal treatment or androgen-deprivation therapy as treatment for prostate cancer, experience hot flashes as well.

The only current therapeutic agents for this condition are androgen-originating hormones. However, some of which can actually fuel the growth of cancer. Men may be relieved of hot flashes but new cancer growth becomes an issue to worry about.

Now, according to North Central Cancer Treatment Group researchers (based at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.), low doses of the drug gabapentin can reduce hot flashes in this patient population of men.

…the drug gabapentin reduced the frequency and the intensity of hot flashes by up to 46 percent in men receiving androgen deprivation therapy.

The men who received gabapentin reported fewer side effects than those receiving a placebo tablet.

Gabapentin is being used to prevent epileptic seizures and to treat nerve pain caused by shingles.

According to the study’s lead investigator, Mayo Clinic oncologist Charles Loprinzi, M.D.:

“To my knowledge, this is the first nonhormonal treatment of hot flashes in men, where results from a placebo-controlled trial are positive enough to support that a nonhormonal medication can be used to help some of our patients.

Because gabapentin works on the central nervous system, its function may be similar to some antidepressants that are prescribed to reduce hot flashes in women entering menopause.

This [gabapentin] provides an immediate clinical option that has not been previously available for treatment of hot flash side effects, and it is a welcome one.”

The findings, presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, came from the 223-patient, placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trial on gabapentin.

Approved by the FDA to treat epileptic seizures in 1994 and pain from shingles in 2002, gabapentin is marketed by Pfizer under the trade name Neurontin®.

Find more details from the Mayo Clinic full report.