Limitations of hormonal blockade for localized prostate cancer
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
ANDY DWORKIN
Across the country, urologists increasingly give men with localized prostate cancers hormone-blocking treatments normally used on late-stage cancers.
Doctors hope that early use of the testosterone-fighting weapon might keep the cancer from spreading in the body.
But that is probably a pipe dream, Oregon Health & Science University researchers say.
In a group of 276 men who had this treatment at OHSU, almost one in 10 died from prostate cancer within five years.
“Ten percent dying at five years from any localized prostate cancer is not good,” said Dr. Tomasz Beer, director of OHSU’s Prostate Cancer Research Program. “What this suggests to me is that this treatment is not very effective.”
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