Pitfalls of hormonal injection therapy in prostate cancer

To highlight that clinicians should not solely rely on serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) elevation to assume hormone resistant prostate cancer status, in patients on long-acting luteinising hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist injection for prostate cancer. A retrospective observational report. Three not uncommon case scenarios of falsely raised PSA were encountered with the use of LHRH injections. In these case scenarios, serum testosterone level has served as a useful indicator of compliance to LHRH therapy. Where there are suspicions of non-compliance or inappropriate LHRH administration, the clinician should make a detailed evaluation of the patient's therapy. Unnecessary anxiety in patients and inappropriate referral for further aggressive cancer therapy could be avoided.