Study Finds Better Survival Odds with Surgery as Initial Therapy for Younger Men with High-Risk Prostate Cancer
Researchers compared survival rates in men younger than 60 who had radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy as their initial prostate cancer treatment. Men who initially had surgery had a 48% improvement in overall survival after more than 4 years of median follow-up. The estimated survival rate at 8 years was 85.1% for men who had surgery, compared to 74.9% for men who had radiation as their initial treatment.
The analysis included 16,944 patients who had Gleason score 8-10 prostate cancer, but no metastasis or lymph node involvement. Most of the men who had radiation therapy also had hormone therapy. About 17% of the patients who had surgery also had radiation.
Researchers from the University of Maryland in Baltimore presented the analysis at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in June 2017. The said their results are limited by the retrospective nature of the analysis and the lack of cancer-specific survival information.
