Posted on 08/18/2004 6:48:41 PM PDT by neverdem
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Men with prostate cancer that does not appear to have spread have better survival chances when they get short-term hormone treatment along with standard radiation, rather than radiation alone, a small study has found.
Almost five years after treatment, 88 percent of men who received the combined treatment were still alive, compared with 78 percent who had only radiation. The study involved about 200 men and was conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
An article on the study appears in the current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Of the more than 200,000 cases of prostate cancer diagnosed each year in the United States, nearly half of the men have the type involved in the study: an exam and imaging indicate it has not spread, but other tests suggest it might have.
Treatment for such men often involves radiation alone or radiation combined with long-term use of drugs that suppress male hormone production, often for as long as three years or more. But long-term drug use may cause thinning bones, heart abnormalities that can lead to sudden death and impaired mental function.
The study found that using hormone-blocking drugs for six months had the same survival benefits as long-term use, but without the potential health risks. Some men did have side effects including impotence, but that can occur with other prostate cancer treatments, including surgery and radiation.
"It's a very important and useful study and should have nearly immediate impact on the fashion in which men are treated," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate cancer programs at the American Cancer Society.
But in an editorial appearing in the journal, Dr. Thomas DeWeese of Johns Hopkins University was more cautious. Though he called the study compelling and important, he said it was too soon to declare that hormones and radiation should become the standard treatment for all men with the kind of prostate cancer that was studied.
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