MedWire News: Men with locally advanced prostate cancer who receive radiation treatment in addition to anti-androgen hormone therapy have better survival rates than those who receive the hormone treatment alone, study results show.

Locally advanced prostate cancer is cancer that has started to spread to tissues surrounding the prostate, but has not spread into the lymph nodes or other organs.

Anti-androgen hormone therapy is used to treat prostate cancer by blocking the effect of testosterone on prostate cancer cells, helping to shrink the tumour and slow down the development of the disease.

Lead researcher Professor Anders Widmark, from Umeå University in Sweden, and team studied 880 patients with locally advanced prostate cancer who were randomly assigned to receive anti-androgen hormone therapy combined with external beam radiation therapy or anti-androgen hormone therapy alone between 1996 and 2002.

Analysis revealed that combined hormone and radiation therapy was associated with a 50% greater survival rate than hormone therapy alone. Indeed, 18% of patients who underwent hormone therapy alone died of prostate cancer during the study period, compared with just 9% of those who received the combined treatment.

Quality of life at 4 years was similar between the two groups of patients, although men who received the combined treatment had slightly poorer 'social function'.

Commenting on the findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Professor Widmark said: "This randomized trial is the first to show that men with locally advanced prostate cancer will survive substantially longer when radiation is added to their treatment plan."

He added: "I would encourage men with locally advanced prostate cancer to talk to their doctor to see if they would be a good candidate for radiation therapy in addition to hormone treatment."