Cardiovascular and thromboembolic events associated with intense neoadjuvant androgen deprivation therapy followed by prostatectomy in patients with localized prostate cancer: A meta-analysis of clinical trials.

341 Background: Several phase II trials have investigated neoadjuvant novel androgen receptor signaling inhibitors (ARSIs) in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) followed by radical prostatectomy (RP) in prostate cancer (PC) patients (pts). However, data regarding complications of the intense hormone therapy and surgical complications are scarce. The phase III trial PROTEUS testing ARSIs plus ADT added an amendment for thrombotic prophylaxis in the perioperative setting. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate cardiovascular (CV) and thromboembolic (TE) adverse events (AEs) during neoadjuvant and perioperative intervals. Methods: This study was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42022344104). A comprehensive search of PubMed, Embase, and Scopus databases and conference abstracts was performed from January 2010 to June 2022. Eligible studies include randomized and single-arm trials testing ARSIs prior to prostatectomy which adequately reported safety data regarding TE and CV AEs, peri-operative complications, and mortality during therapy. DerSimon and Laird method for random effects model was performed to estimate the pooled incidence (PI) of events with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Heterogeneity was tested with I2 value. Results: 8 RCTs and 3 single-arm phase II trials comprising 674 pts were included (674 pts for CV and TE AEs and 499 for perioperative complications). Neoadjuvant regimen was classified as monotherapy with ADT (21 pts), ARSIs (100 pts), combination therapy with ADT + ARSI (338 pts), or ADT + ARSI + ARSI (215 pts). PI of all grade TE was 3.2% (95% CI, 1.6% – 4.8%, I2 = 0.0%, p = 0.92); TE incidence during perioperative period was 3.9% (95% CI, 1.6 – 6.1%, I2 = 0.0%, p = 0.67). 7 deaths were reported, with a PI of 3.0% (95% CI, 0.7–5.3%, I2 = 0.0%, p = 0.98). 2 of the mortality AE were considered treatment-related within perioperative interval. Incidence of hypertension grade 3-5 was 8.9% (95% CI, 5.2–12.7%, I2= 51.6%, p = 0.02). Incidence measures per regimen are described. Conclusions: CV and TE events associated with intense neoadjuvant hormone therapy in patients with localized PC can occur in up to 3.9% of cases. Our data warns for further assessment of thrombotic risk and prophylactic anticoagulation in this setting. [Table: see text]