Young Prostate Patients Don't Fare Worse
Age Shouldn't Play Role in Determining Prostate Cancer Treatment
March 14, 2003 -- Age shouldn't matter when it comes to selecting a prostate cancer treatment, according to a new study.
Researchers say the traditional perception has been that younger men diagnosed with prostate cancer had more aggressive forms of the disease and faced a shorter cancer-free survival after treatment than older patients. Based on that perception, many urologists often recommended more aggressive prostate cancer treatment, such as surgery, over radiation therapy.
But the study, published in the March 15 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics, found that age does not significantly affect cancer-free survival among men treated with radiation therapy.
"Along with the bias that younger patients are more at risk, there is also a perception that younger patients are better suited to surgery than radiation therapy," says researcher Peter A.S. Johnstone, MD, of the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, in a news release.
Although the study didn't directly compare the effectiveness of radiation versus surgery in prostate cancer treatment, Johnstone says the findings questions the view that age should have any influence in selecting treatment.
The study analyzed the treatment outcomes of 1,018 men who received radiation therapy only for prostate cancer from the Department of Defense between 1988 and 2000. Researchers followed the men for an average of about 7 years and then compared the cancer-free survival of the patients.
They found age did not significantly affect the risk of cancer-related death or cancer recurrence -- whether or not they compared the men in groups (under or over age 60 and by decade) or individually according to age.
"Absent data comparing radiation with surgery in young men, physicians counseling patients regarding potential therapies for prostate cancer should not consider the age of the patient to be a factor in choosing a treatment," says Johnstone.