A big US study looked at how well men stick with different prostate‑cancer hormone therapies. The only pill‑based option, relugolix, was taken consistently by about 61% of patients after a year, far better than the injectable drugs degarelix and the older GnRH agonists, which saw much lower stick‑rates. People on relugolix also stayed on treatment longer before stopping. This suggests the oral drug is easier to follow in real life, especially for those with advanced cancer.

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is standard for advanced prostate cancer. Relugolix, a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor antagonist, is the only oral ADT, with limited real-world data on therapy persistence and adherence. This retrospective study evaluates persistence and adherence of relugolix, degarelix, and GnRH agonists (leuprolide, goserelin, triptorelin, histrelin) using data from the IBM MarketScan Research Database (Jan 2017 - Dec 2022). The IBM MarketScan Research Database (1 January 2017 - 31 December 2022) was used for enrollment history and claims. ADT adherence was measured by the proportion of days covered (PDC) at 3, 6, and 12 months, calculated as days on ADT divided by period duration. Kaplan-Meier analysis assessed treatment persistence by measuring time to treatment discontinuation. Relugolix had higher adherence (PDC ≥ 80%) at 12 months (60.8%) compared to degarelix (13.0%) and GnRH agonists (46.3%). Median time to discontinuation was also longer for relugolix (13.5 months) than degarelix (3.1 months) and GnRH agonists (8.8 months). Persistence and adherence rates were higher in metastatic prostate cancer. Findings support relugolix use as an oral treatment due to its favorable persistence and long-term adherence profiles.