A recent study suggests there has been an increase in the rate of testosterone testing, with more testing seen in men with hypogonadism, but many of those tests may be inaccurate.

The testosterone study suggests that doctors may be incorrectly testing for low-t and unnecessarily exposing patients to heart attacks risks associated with testosterone replacement therapy drugs such as AndroGel, Axiron, Depo-Testosterone, and Testim.

According to research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the testing behaviors of practitioners and characteristics of men who are undergoing testing for low testosterone were examined. Men aged 18 to 85 years were considered tested if they had undergone serum testosterone level testing for any purpose from 2009 to 2012.

The researchers found that 3.2 percent of the 321,674 men underwent testing between 2009 and 2012 with a serum total testosterone. During the study period, the frequency of testing increased from 2.5 to 3.6 percent but only 9 percent of the men were tested at the appropriate time, and therefore received an inaccurate result.

The testosterone study also implies that direct-to-consumer ads for testosterone replacement therapies have significantly increased over the past several years. Subsequently, testing for low-t has correspondingly increased.

Studies Link Testosterone to Heart Attack

A number of studies link testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) to an increased risk of cardiovascular problems. These studies caught the attention of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which issued a safety alert stating that it will investigate these findings to determine whether new labeling on products is in order.

Some key study findings regarding testosterone replacement therapy drugs include:

• A 2014 study published in PLoS One reported that testosterone replacement therapy doubles risk of heart attack for men over 65, and triples risk for men under 65 with pre-existing heart disease.
• A study published in the 2013 Journal of the American Medical Association found testosterone was linked to a 30 percent increased risk of heart attack and stroke in first 90 days of treatment.
• A 2010 study by the New England Journal of Medicine was discontinued prematurely after an exceedingly high number of men in the testosterone group suffered adverse effects.

Aggressive Marketing Tactics

Millions of men are prescribed low testosterone treatment but many of these drugs can lead to serious heart-related side effects, including heart attacks. Drug companies also have marketed testosterone directly to consumers, however, urging men to consider hormones to treat the symptoms of “low-t,” which are said to include energy loss, mood changes and reduced sex drive.

Those ads appear to have been hugely successful. Doctors wrote more than 5.3 million prescriptions for testosterone replacement therapy in 2011, five times as many as in 2000, according to a November report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The number of men taking testosterone tripled from 2001 to 2011, with the drugs now used by nearly 4 percent of men in their 60s, according to a separate study last year in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy Lawsuits

Testosterone product lawsuits are appearing more frequently as thousands of men report injuries shortly after beginning treatment. The common factor in these testosterone drug lawsuits is the allegation that the testosterone therapy drug makers put greed before consumer safety, by aggressively marketing these drugs without thoroughly researching the cardiovascular risks.

In June, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered the consolidation of all federal testosterone product lawsuits over testosterone replacement therapies in the Northern District of Illinois.