Early Radiation May Cure Recurrent Prostate Cancer

Early radiation treatment can cure men whose prostate cancer returns after surgery, even those at highest risk for disease progression, new research suggests.

This study, Dr. Kevin M. Slawin told Reuters Health, has “important implications” for patients because of the “widespread notion” that high-risk disease precludes the use of such “salvage” therapy. Slawin, from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and a multicenter team reviewed the outcome of 501 patients who received radiation therapy for recurrent prostate cancer. They report their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The authors found that such patients often did well, provided that radiation was given early–before the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test level rose above 2. “If you wait until the PSA is over 2, these patients do dismally,” Slawin noted. Dr. Mitchell A. Anscher, from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, writes in an accompanying editorial that radiation therapy after radical prostatectomy is used “too infrequently and too late in the course of the disease. This is particularly true for patients who might benefit the most”–those with high-risk disease. (Source: Journal of the American Medical Association: Reuters Health: Megan Rauscher: MedLine Plus: March 2004.)