Researchers reported that blocking testosterone may help prevent COVID-19 in men, based on research that Italian men with prostate cancer on androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) were less likely to get infected with COVID-19 and had less severe cases if they were infected. An enzyme COVID-19 needs to infect cells was blocked by ADT.
THURSDAY, May 7, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Many drugs are being tested to fight COVID-19, but now researchers report that blocking testosterone might help prevent the infection in men.
Italian men with prostate cancer on androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) were less likely to get infected with COVID-19 and had less severe cases if they were infected, the researchers found.
Lead researcher Dr. Andrea Alimonti, an oncologist at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Bellinzona, Switzerland, thinks it might be worth trying this therapy on men with severe cases of COVID-19.
"This could give us a therapeutic window to treat patients that have been infected and haven't gotten better, to see whether this therapy would lead them to recover faster or to decrease the severity of their symptoms," he said.
Alimonti's interest was piqued when he saw data that men were more likely to develop COVID-19 than women and suffer more severe bouts of the disease.
Putting two and two together, he realized that an enzyme (TMPRSS2), which COVID-19 needs to infect cells, was blocked by androgen-deprivation therapy.