Safe Approach for Prostate Cancer
According to a new study, actively monitoring early-stage prostate cancer delivers the same long-term survival percentage as having the tumour surgically removed or treated with radiation. Many men will be able to avoid the option’s potential therapeutic side effects, which include impair bowel, urinary, and sexual function.
The study’s lead author, Freddie Hamdy, MD, a professor of surgery and urology at the University of Oxford in England, said in a statement that it is obvious that, unlike many other malignancies, a prostate cancer diagnosis shouldn’t prompt fear or hasty decision-making. In the understanding that this won’t negatively impact their survival, patients and clinicians can and should take their time weighing the potential benefits and dangers of various treatments.
The findings were presented at a meeting of the European Association of Urology on Saturday and were later published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study investigated three different courses of treatment among more than 1,600 males residing in the United Kingdom. Between 1999 and 2009, these guys had brand-new localised prostate cancer diagnoses. The males underwent radiation therapy, underwent partial or complete surgical excision of the prostate gland, or underwent ongoing laboratory blood testing for active monitoring. Ages of the men ranged from 50 to 69, and 62 was the median age upon diagnosis. After being diagnosed, they were followed for 15 years.
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Overall, 3% of the study’s male participants lost their lives to prostate cancer; this rate persisted whether or not they had received therapy or surveillance.
In the United States, prostate cancer is the second most frequent cancer among men, and it will claim 33,000 lives in 2020. The male reproductive system includes the prostate gland, which is situated next to the bladder. It is the size of a walnut and covers the urethra, the tube that drains the bladder of pee. Semen-containing fluid is produced by the prostate gland.
Compared to the men in the other two treatment groups, men who got active monitoring had a twice-as-high risk of their cancer spreading. The monitoring group nonetheless shared the same 97% 15-year survival rate as the two therapy groups. Around one-fourth of the males in the monitoring group had not undergone any invasive therapy at the conclusion of the 15-year follow-up period.
It will surprise and inspire urologists and patients, according to Peter Albers, MD, chair of the EAU’s Scientific Congress Office and a urologist at Düsseldorf University in Germany, that the greater disease progression found under active surveillance didn’t result in higher death. “Active monitoring and biopsy methods are far more sophisticated now than they were when this research was completed, so it’s likely that we may further enhance these results. The idea that postponing therapy is safe is crucial information for patients, especially considering that doing so also implies postponing adverse effects.
