Combination Therapy for Prostrate Cancer Improves Survival Rates

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cancer killer of men. Globally 221,000 men die each year, and there are approximately 679,000 new cases diagnosed with 186,000 of those being in the U.S. As with most cancers, if detected in early stages prostate cancer is easily cured. Once spread beyond the prostrate it is usually treated with drugs that disrupt cancer fueling hormones.

Swedish researchers have just completed a study of 800 prostrate cancer patients which showed that nearly 24 percent of men who received only standard drug treatment had died after 10 years. Less than 12 percent of men who received both standard drugs and radiation treatment died in the same window of time. Those who survived more than 10 years saw a recurrence rate of 26 percent in those who had combination therapy, compared to 75 percent of those who had received only hormone therapy. The researchers said that the combination therapy should become the global standard of care.

The addition of radiation did not add too many side effects, according to the researchers. “The quality of life and adverse effect profile is acceptable. We therefore suggest that endocrine treatment plus radiotherapy should be the new standard of care for these patients,” Anders Widmark of Umea University in Sweden and colleagues wrote. The study was published in the journal Lancet Oncology.

The study focused on patients with “locally advanced” prostate tumors, those which have spread beyond the edge of the prostate gland, but have not invaded lymph nodes or other organs. According to Dr. Howard Sandler such tumors are difficult to completely remove with surgery and doctors usually treat such patients with other forms of therapy. Dr. Sandler is a spokesman for the American Society of Clinical Oncology and chair of Radiation Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was not involved in the study.

Dr. Sandler said that the additional radiation therapy is already standard in this country, but health agencies in Europe did not always provide radiation as well as drug treatment and that the radiation therapy that was performed in the study was somewhat simplistic, and modern radiation therapy with higher doses might magnify the benefits.

Dr. Chris Parker and Dr. Alex Tan of Britain’s Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey wrote that, “The results should change current practice, making long-term hormonal therapy plus radical radiotherapy the standard of care for men with locally advanced prostate cancer." Experts predict the study will change the way prostate cancer patients are treated outside of the US.

John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity said that the cancer specialists will have to digest all of the results before changes can occur in medical care, but the study represents real progress because it is about men, not mice or cells.