Treat or monitor early prostate cancer? 10-yr survival same

LONDON (AP) — Men with early prostate cancer who choose to closely monitor their disease are just as likely to survive at least 10 years as those who have surgery or radiation, finds a major study that directly tested and compared these options.

Survival from prostate cancer was so high — 99 percent, regardless of which approach men had — that the results call into question not only what treatment is best but also whether any treatment at all is needed for early-stage cases.

"There's been no hard evidence that treating early disease makes a difference," said Dr. Freddie Hamdy of the University of Oxford, the study's leader.

"Because we cannot determine very well which is aggressive cancer and which is not, men and clinicians can both be anxious about whether the disease will progress," he said.

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, welcomed the results but said it would be a struggle to convince men diagnosed with early prostate cancer in the U.S. to skip surgery or radiation.

PSA testing remains popular in the U.S. even after a government task force recommended against it, saying it does more harm than good by leading to false alarms and overtreatment of many cancers that would never threaten a man's life.