Prostate Cancer Surgery vs. Watchful Waiting: 1.2 Percent Difference

What's the difference, after ten years, in the risk of dying from prostate cancer for patients who treat the cancer with either prostatectomy or radiation and those who do nothing? 1.2 percent. That number comes from a recent study in which Swedish researchers looked at almost 6,900 patients from the National Prostate Cancer Registry
Sweden, age 70 or younger, who had localized prostate cancer and a low
or intermediate risk that the cancer would progress. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that the researchers found that after a median follow-up of just over 8 years, the surveillance group had a much higher death rate from causes other
than prostate cancer — 19.2 percent, compared with 6.8 percent in the
prostatectomy group and 10.9 percent in the radiation therapy group.This, the researchers said, suggests that patients with a shorter life expectancy were more
often selected for active surveillance rather than surgery or radiation
therapy.The patients who underwent surgery for prostate cancer did have a lower
risk of dying from prostate cancer than those in the active
surveillance group, but the difference in absolute risk was only 1.2 percent
after 10 years of follow-up.

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