Longer hormone treatment may improve moderate prostate cancer
June 12th, 2009 Posted in hormone therapyA new European study has found that men with moderately advanced prostate cancer who get hormone-blocking drugs after radiation therapy do better when the drug treatment is continued for two or more years after an initial six-month regimen.
The results apply to men whose cancer shows signs of growth but has not spread beyond the prostate gland - perhaps a quarter of all cases of prostate cancer, said Dr. Eric M. Horwitz, acting chairman of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who led the group that did the U.S. study.
Earlier studies in the United States and Europe established the value of radiation therapy followed by six months of hormone-blocking treatment in such cases, he said. The new studies were designed to determine whether continuation of drug therapy that blocks the cancer-promoting activity of the male hormone testosterone could improve those results.