Wealthy benefit from best prostate treatment

Friday April 23rd, 2010

Men from Britain's poorest areas tend to miss out on cutting edge treatment when they develop prostate cancer, researchers warned today.

Men in wealthier areas are most likely to receive radiotherapy or radical surgery, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers say they do not know the cause of the problem - which might be cultural or simply because better educated people are more successful at talking their way into the best treatments.

Researchers studied the fate of more than 35,000 men between 1995 and 2006.

About 25 per cent of patients received radiotherapy whilst by 2006 more than eight per cent received surgery. In 1995 this was fewer than three per cent.

The researchers say men from the poorest areas are 26 per cent less likely to have radiotherapy and half as likely to undergo radical surgery than men from the wealthiest areas.

Researcher Georgios Lyratzopoulos, of Cambridge University, UK, say the reasons for these differences are "uncertain".

He says men in the wealthiest areas are also more likely to be diagnosed with the disease - possibly because of undergoing PSA tests - which detect the cancer. And their survival rates from prostate cancer are now about 80 per cent, he says.

British Medical Journal on-line April 23 2010

Tags: Cancer | Men’s Health | UK News

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