A study of prostate cancer treatment has found significant benefits from the use of routine radiotherapy after surgery, researchers reported today.
Research involving more than 1,000 men in France found that men given radiotherapy straight after surgery fared better than other patients. The other patients were monitored and given radiation treatment if there were signs of disease recurrence.
Doctors found that immediate therapy did not seem to cut death rates or reduce spread of cancer – but it had other benefits.
Reporting in The Lancet, the researchers say that after ten years men who had immediate radiotherapy had better survival without biochemical progression than the others.
They were also less likely than the others to need hormone treatment.
Researcher Michel Bolla from the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire A Michallon, France, said: "These long-term results reassure us of the continued benefit and safety of radiation therapy after prostatectomy for a large proportion of men with locally advanced or high-risk prostate cancer.
"They also suggest that younger patients and those with positive surgical margins are most likely to benefit from immediate radiotherapy, whereas in older adults (aged 70 years plus) it could have detrimental effects."
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