steve kramer

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As always, very brief abstract, but....

Jan. 7, 2004 -- The major treatments for localized prostate cancer all
work -- and none works better than the others, new research shows.

The findings are reassuring to men who've already undergone treatment. But
they don't offer much guidance to a man trying to decide which treatment is
best for him.
It doesn't matter whether a man's prostate tumor has, as doctors say,
"favorable" or "unfavorable" characteristics. The chances of cure are the
same whether he chooses surgery (radical prostatectomy), high-dose external
beam radiation, implantation of radioactive "seeds," or a combination of
seeds and external beam radiation.

The only treatment that doesn't work as well as the others is low-dose
external beam radiation alone.

The findings come from a study of nearly 3,000 men treated for prostate
cancer between 1990 and 1998 at The Cleveland Clinic or at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering at Mercy Medical Center. The treatment was considered to
have failed if a patient had three consecutive tests showing rising PSA
levels. The study, led by Patrick A. Kupelian, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer
Center Orlando, did not look at patient survival.

"This study represents the largest published series comparing the most
frequently used therapies for clinically localized prostate cancer in the
PSA era," Kupelian says in a news release. "The results suggest that except
for [low-dose external beam radiation], biological failure at seven years is
determined more by the intrinsic tumor characteristics at the time of
therapy rather than a specific [kind of] treatment."
How, then, does a man with prostate cancer choose the best treatment? It's
not an easy process. A man must consult with one or more doctors and
consider which side effects he's most comfortable risking. The "right"
choice differs according to the individual.


--
Prostate Cancer Survivor (so far), not a doctor
PSA 16 10/17/2000 @ 46
Biopsy 11/01/2000 G7 (3+4), T2c
RRP 12/15/2000
PSA .1 .1 .1 .3 .4 .8
EBRT 05-07/2002 @ 47
PSA .3 .2 .2 .2 .3
Erection 05/12/2003 @ 48
HTbegins 07/21/2003 @ 48
PSA .1
Lupron 7/03, 8/03, 12/03