ROCHESTER, Minn., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Surgery provided high survival rates for patients with the most aggressive forms of prostate cancer, U.S. researchers say.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia say men undergoing radical prostatectomy procedures had a 10-year cancer-specific survival rate of 92 percent and an overall survival rate of 77 percent.
The cancer-specific survival rate for patients who had radiation therapy alone was 88 percent and the overall survival rate was 52 percent.
"It's long been believed that patients with aggressive prostate cancer are not candidates for surgery," Dr. Stephen Boorjian of the Mayo Clinic says in a statement.
"We found that surgery does provide excellent long-term cancer control for this type of prostate cancer. In addition, by allowing the targeted use of secondary therapies such as androgen deprivation, surgery offers the opportunity to avoid or at least delay the potentially adverse health consequences of these treatments."
Boorjian and colleagues looked at 1,847 patients with aggressive prostate cancer -- 1,238 of whom underwent surgery at Mayo Clinic and 609 of whom were treated with radiation therapy at Fox Chase. Of the 609 receiving radiation therapy, 344 also received androgen deprivation therapy -- blocking the production of male sex hormones.
The findings were presented in Chicago at the annual meeting of the North Central Section of the American Urological Association.
