Prostate Cancer: Radiation Not Best
Men Treated With Surgery, Seed Implants Live Longer
Feb. 26, 2007 (Kissimmee, Fla.) -- External radiation therapy may cut survival rates for men with early-stage prostate cancer.
These men are more likely to die over the next five years than those treated with radioactive seed implants or surgery to remove the prostate, a new study suggests.
But even radiation treatment was highly effective, the researchers say.
After five years, 96% of the men who received seed implants and 98% of those who had surgery were still alive, they report. In contrast, 94% of the men who received external radiation were alive.
The findings suggest that "over the long term, the three treatments are not necessarily equivalent in terms of overall survival," says researcher Jay Ciezki, MD, a radiation oncologist at The Cleveland Clinic.
The study was presented here at the 2007 Prostate Cancer Symposium in Kissimmee, Fla.
Newer Radiation Technique Used
The researchers studied 2,285 men with early-stage cancer that was still confined to the prostate -- a group that accounts for about 80% of men diagnosed with the disease.
Of the total, 1,053 men had surgery to remove the prostate. Six hundred sixty-two were treated with seed implant therapy, or brachytherapy, in which surgeons permanently implant tiny radioactive seeds into the prostate gland.
The rest got external radiation therapy, usually with a newer type of treatment known as intensity modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, in which multiple beams are focused at the prostate from many directions.
A computerized program allows doctors to adjust both the strength and the intensity of the beams so that more radiation is blasted at the tumor and less is delivered to critical surrounding organs such as the bladder and rectum.
Radiation Still Viable Option
After taking into account other factors that raise the risk of dying (chiefly age, other illnesses, and smoking) the results showed that the difference in survival rates among men given seed implants and surgery could have been due to chance. But external beam radiotherapy proved inferior to either of them, Ciezki says.
Eric Klein, MD, head of urologic oncology at The Cleveland Clinic, says that all things being equal, surgery or seed implants are the treatments of choice for most men. That said, radiation therapy should not be abandoned, doctors say.