The side effects of steroids for prostate cancer

Dear WDDTY

In the second to last paragraph of Clive Couldwell's article on prostate cancer (WDDTY vol 6 no 4), he refers to "potential" side effects, including osteoporosis, of steroids. I do think "potential" is a more honest choice of word than "alleged", as in Dr Thomas Stuttaford's Times article. The article states that the British Thoracic Society's guidelines on asthma management in childhood, which are due out later this year, are expected to emphasize the importance of the early prescription of inhaled steroids.

At the very first symposium of the National Osteoporosis Society, I met a young woman in her early twenties who had had to abandon her nursing career because of fractures. Steroids had been taken for childhood asthma, with no warnings of possible side effects, and the fractures now revealed osteoporosis. Elfriede Colman, London.....