Men under 65 with early prostate cancer had better survival odds if they had surgery right away instead of waiting for treatment only if their cancer got worse, a study in Sweden found.
That was true even for tumors thought to be low-risk because they didn’t look very aggressive under a microscope.
Doctors have long debated whether and how to treat such early cases, and the study shows “there clearly is a benefit to getting the cancer out in the younger population,” said Dr. Rich ard Greenberg, urology chief at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
But there’s a big caveat: The benefit may depend on how a man is diagnosed. About 95 percent of the cancers in the Swedish study were found because they were causing symptoms. In the United States, however, most are found after a PSA blood test suggests a problem, long before symptoms appear. Most of these cancers will not prove life-threatening, but there’s no sure-fire way to tell which ones will, so many men get treatment they may not need.
The study appears in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.
The Associated Press
