Seventy-five percent of prostate cancer cases treated with aggressive drugs

Seventy-five percent of prostate cancer cases treated with aggressive drugs and surgery -- even when it's useless to do so

More than 75 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer are treated aggressively, even though most prostate cancers are slow-growing and will never pose a risk to a man's life, according to a study conducted by researchers from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey and UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"There's no question there is a problem of overtreatment of prostate cancer," said Matthew Cooperberg of the University of San Francisco, who was not involved in the study.

Researchers examined data from 16 tumor registries covering roughly 26 percent of the U.S. population and found records from 124,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 2004 and 2006. They found that even in men with low levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA), indicating a low-risk cancer, aggressive treatments were pursued more than 75 percent of the time. Read more...

Ayurstate for Prostate Care