Radiation helps even when prostate cancer returns

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Radiation therapy can help prolong the lives of men with aggressive prostate cancer whose tumors return after surgery, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Radiation therapy given within two years of recurrence cut the risk of dying from prostate cancer by two-thirds, compared with those who got no additional treatment, they said.

"Our data strongly suggest that post-surgery radiotherapy can improve survival in men whose tumors are growing rapidly," said Bruce Trock of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, whose study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

While past studies have found radiation therapy helps keep tumors from growing, the latest study is the first to show a survival benefit from radiation therapy in aggressive prostate cancer that has returned, Trock said in a telephone interview.

"It also means that we may be able to give radiation selectively to those who are really likely to benefit from it," he said.

Prostate cancer, which is found in 780,000 men every year globally and kills 250,000, can be very slow growing. While common, it does not always require immediate treatment.

Surgery alone is enough to keep prostate cancer from coming back in about 30 to 40 percent of men with high-risk tumors, Trock said. The trouble is, "you don't know which 30 to 40 percent of men," he said.

That's important because radiation therapy is not without side effects. It can result in urinary problems like incontinence and bowel trouble, including diarrhea and rectal bleeding.