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Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer can delay or avoid difficult treatments without harming their chances of survival, according to new results from a long-term UK study.
Men in the study who teamed up with their doctors to closely monitor their low- to intermediate-risk prostate tumors — a strategy called surveillance or active monitoring — reduced their risk of life-changing complications such as urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction that can occur after aggressive treatment for the disease, and were not as likely More die from cancer than men who have had surgery to remove the prostate or have been treated with hormone blocking drugs and radiation.
"The good news is that if you've been diagnosed with prostate cancer, don't panic, and take your time making a decision about how to proceed," said lead study author Dr Freddie Headey, a specialist in surgery and urology at the University of Oxford.
Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of death from cancer among men in Israel and worldwide.
According to data from the Ministry of Health and the Cancer Society, every year about 2,700 new prostate cancer patients are discovered in Israel, and about 420 men die from the disease.
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A man at the doctor's (Photo: ShutterStock)
"Everybody expected the curves to separate and start seeing a survival advantage for men who receive radical treatment, and that didn't happen," says Dr. Headey in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "It was a big surprise." The study followed the progress of 1,600 men who agreed to be associated to one of three types of treatment: surgery, radiation or monitoring.
"There was no difference in prostate cancer mortality at 15 years between the groups," Dr. Stacey Love of NYU Langone Health, who was not involved in the study, tells STAT News.
Another outside expert, Matthew Smith of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, tells the journal that this is "really a landmark study in prostate cancer."
Another good news statistic for all involved: no matter which treatment regimen was chosen, the survival rate was high, around 97 percent.
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