New European population based study compares treatments for prostate cancer. More study will be necessary to verify the results but it does give more information that may be helpful especially to younger men trying to decide which treatment is most suitable for them.

MedPage Today discusses the study for physicians and gives them talking points to use with their patients. Below is a section of the article:

GENEVA, Switzerland, Oct. 9 — Surgery offered the best chance of 10-year survival in localized prostate cancer particularly for men younger than 70 and with poorly differentiated tumors, according to an observational study. Compared with patients who had a prostatectomy, those given radiation therapy and those managed with watchful waiting had approximately twice the increased risk of dying of the disease multiadjusted hazard ratio, 2.3, (95% CI, 1.2-4.3) for radiation therapy and 2.0 (CI, 1.1-3.8) for watchful waiting, Christine Bouchardy, M.D., M.P.H., of Geneva University, and colleagues reported in the Oct. 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

For radiation therapy, the multiadjusted hazard ratio was 2.3, (95% CI, 1.2-4.3). It was 2.0 (CI, 1.1-3.8) for watchful waiting.

The mortality risk for hormone therapy alone was even higher at 3.5 times the risk with surgery (CI, 1.4-8.7) at five years, the researchers said.

Strategies for the management of localized prostate cancer are still being debated because randomized trials have not yet established which treatment provides the best long-term outcome. Therefore treatment choice is strongly influenced by patients’ and physicians’ personal preferences and experience, the researchers noted.

Even in this observational study, they said, basic limitations inherent in the design suggest that, until randomized clinical trials provide conclusive evidence, physicians and patients should be informed of these results but should take the study’s limitations into consideration when making a treatment decision.

It is unknown how these results would translate to men treated in the United States of America.

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