Although prostate cancer can become very dangerous, most men who develop it won’t die as a result. Even so, improving the survival rate can’t possibly be useless. Every year across the world, over 47,000 men receive a prostate cancer diagnosis every year.
According to SciTechDaily, a Cedars-Sinai Cancer study having Howard Sandler, MD, as the senior author, shows that by combining an androgen deprivation therapy with pelvic lymph node radiotherapy, prostate cancer will be prevented from therapy. Researchers involved in the study have shown that the method works in a vast majority of those who participated in a clinical trial.
Over 1,700 individuals participated in the global Phase III clinical trial after they were gathered between 2008 and 2015. Three groups were created of the participants.
Howard Sandler, MD, who’s also chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Cancer, said, as SciTechDaily quotes:
We can now confirm that pelvic lymph node treatment used together with androgen deprivation therapy, or even used as a stand-alone treatment option, greatly improves outcomes in patients with postoperative prostate cancer,
These findings are an encouraging step forward, both for the medical community and for the patients and their loved ones seeking curative treatment options.
Dan Theodorescu, MD, Ph.D., and also director of Cedars-Sinai Cancer, explained, as the same source quotes:
Improving and extending lives is at the heart of all we do at Cedars-Sinai Cancer,
These pivotal clinical findings exemplify our mission while showcasing how ideas spur leading-edge research and treatment innovations.
According to the National Cancer Institute, there were over 3.2 million men who were living with prostate cancer in the US back in 2019. The same source reveals that the 5-year relative survival is 96.8%.
The new results were published in The Lancet.