Prostate Cancer Surgery
Leads to High Retreatment Rates
Patients Misinformed
Alternative Medicine Digest #17, 3-4/97, p 99.
Original source: L.A. McKeown, "High Retreatment
Rates Shown After Prostate Removal," Medical Tribune (March
21, 1996). 13.
According to a new study issued by Grace L. Lu-Yao, Ph.D., of the
U. S. Health Care Financing Administration, surgical removal of
the prostate (called prostatectomy) is often not the end stage
in treating prostate cancer. In 34.9% of cases (based on a patient
study involving 3,494 men treated by prostatectomy from 1985 to 1992),
men required further conventional treatment within five years,
usually radiation, removal of the testes, or hormone supplementation.
The problem here, according to Dr. Lu-Yao, is that medical information
about low retreatment rates led many men to believe that prostate
surgery alone would be sufficient for ending the problem. According
to Gerald W. Chodak, M.D., of Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago,
a physician who contributed to the report, the likelihood that additional
therapy will be required in the future is "an additional piece
of information that is not generally provided to patients" at
the time a prostatectomy is recommended.
Critics of the study contend that the 34.9% figure is too high and
that patients diagnosed since 1996 and the advent of tests for prostate-specific
antigen (a prostate cancer marker) will show a lower retreatment rate,
possibly in the order of 10%. In the Digest's view, the
true "additional piece of information" that is routinely
withheld from most prostate cancer patients is that effective alternative,
noninvasive treatments exist for reversing prostate cancer without
prostatectomy in the first place.
