Sponsored by an educational grant from Solvay
This afternoon is dedicated to the treatment with testosterone and in this symposium, we are concentrating on the choosing of the right patient for testosterone substitution and while we have heard about long-acting depo preparations, this time we will hear also about the transdermal testosterone gel.
The interest in testosterone treatment has increased tremendously over the past years. You see here what you get when you talk to PubMed and hit the buttons, testosterone therapy, human and male between 1970 and 204, 205, it is not quite finished, and you see the number of publications over these 25, 35 years of testosterone treatment. There was very little in the beginning, now we are hitting here last year the peak. So this is also reflected by the fact that we not only have more and more interest in testosterone therapy, but there are more and more preparations
And let me briefly take you through the history of testosterone treatment. You see the first preparation was on the market in the 1940s and that is the testosterone implant, the subcutaneous implant. It is still on the market and it is still a valuable tool in testosterone treatment. Then in the 1950s, we got the first depo injection which was testosterone enanthate and then there was another two decades of silence until we got finally an oral preparation, the testosterone undecanoate in the form of Andriol.
Then again there was silence until the beginning of the 1990s, the transdermal preparations came on the market, first in terms of patches. As you remember, the first patch was a trans-scrotal patch which was put on the scrotum and for the first time we got really physiological serum levels in our patients. This was then followed by the transdermal patch to put on the general skin and another one which came somewhat later. They are still on the market, but they have been superseded by the gels which we now have for four or five years on the market and they come in different shapes and sizes, Estragel, AndroGel® and Testim® and they seem to be the run of these days, but the latest addition was the real depo preparation, testosterone undecanoate again which lasts for three months and the most recent then, the mucosal tablet which is put on the mucosa and also produces physiological serum levels.
Now we are going to concentrate this afternoon on the AndroGel®. Now, we have three speakers here. First of all, I have a co-chairman, the famous Dr. Morales from Kingston, Ontario, and then we have three experts, prominent speakers, who will address the questions of testosterone treatment.
Now, there is one important gadget which you all may have got and we want to make this symposium somewhat interactive, so at the end of each of these presentations, there will be cases demonstrated and you have to choose the therapeutic approach to these cases.
And I am just going to ask you who is present here? Are you a medical specialty endocrinology, urology, gynaecology; are you in general practice or other? Now you know who you are and you know how the system works. So having said this, let me introduce the first speaker, which is Dr. Hermann Behre, who will address the question how to select the right patient. Hermann Behre is Professor of Andrology at the University in Halle, Germany.
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