Similar results were found in a previous study comparing the two treatments in men with more advanced cancer. The latest study, led by a Harvard Medical School researcher and published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, involved 1,586 men whose cancer had not spread beyond the prostate gland. The men were treated between 1989 and 1999 with either traditional external beam radiation or radiation plus six months of drugs that block production of male hormones that can stimulate cancer growth. The researchers compared the two approaches by measuring levels of a blood protein called prostate-specific antigen for years after treatment. Elevated PSA levels can suggest the presence of cancer.
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of death among U.S. men, after lung cancer.
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