It Helps To Know What Watchful Waiting Really Means In Prostate Cancer Treatment

News reports covering a prostate cancer study this week in the New England Journal of Medicine have all pretty much come out with the same message: men diagnosed with prostate cancer who had radical surgery did much better than men who were assigned to "watchful waiting" after they were diagnosed. But guess what? There's a critical fact that seemed to be missing in much of the coverage I saw. And that fact is this: the men who were given the "watchful waiting" as described in the study never received any curative treatment. Let me repeat: No curative treatment. That is a much different approach to watchful waiting than we currently recommend in the United States, where watchful waiting after a diagnosis of prostate cancer usually means offering curative treatment when the prostate cancer changes its behavior. The study was performed in Sweden, Iceland and Finland. Between 1989 and 1999, 695 men were entered into the study after they were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Half were assigned to undergo a radical surgical removal of the prostate gland, and half were assigned to "watchful waiting." Now, watchful waiting today means we watch, and if a patient's prostate cancer changes its characteristics, we act. But in this study, the watchful waiting group was followed with routine medical care and no specific program to regularly monitor and treat if the local prostate cancer was getting worse. And indeed, none of those men (294 stayed in the group) received any curative therapy...
Source: Dr. Len's Cancer Blog - Category: Cancer Authors: Tags: Cancer Care Early detection Medications Prostate Cancer Radiation Therapy Research Screening Survivors Treatment Source Type: blogs