A breakthrough study was just published in The New England Journal of Medicine regarding the conventional treatment of men diagnosed with prostate cancer. The study involved 1643 men from the United Kingdom with localized prostate cancer. About a third of the men had intermediate or high-risk prostate cancer.
There were three groups of treatment the men were randomly assigned to. Each group represented about a third of the total men in the study. The groups included men assigned to receive either active monitoring without treatment, prostate removal, and radiation therapy. Follow-up analysis with the men averaged 15 years. Researchers analyzed the results concerning death from prostate cancer, death from any cause, metastasis, disease progression, and initiation of hormone-blocking therapy.
The researchers found that after 15 years of follow-up, death from prostate cancer was low regardless of the treatment followed.
Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in men. In fact, about one man in seven will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime. Prostate cancer develops mainly in older men. Approximately 60 percent of prostate cancers are diagnosed in men aged 65 or older, and it is rare before age 40. The average age at the time of diagnosis is about 66. Prostate cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind lung cancer and colorectal cancer. About 1 man in 39 will die of prostate cancer. Although prostate cancer can be a serious disease, most men diagnosed do not die from it.
Emerging research has shown that active surveillance is an option for men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Keep in mind that the study I reviewed is specific to men with localized prostate cancer, not metastatic cancer. The older a man is with localized prostate cancer, the more the option of active surveillance becomes a good option. Discuss your options with your oncologist and team of healthcare professionals, including a good holistic doctor.
If you have localized prostate cancer and are following active surveillance, I highly recommend that you become more proactive with nutritional therapies. In our book Outside The Box Cancer Therapies (Hay House Publishing), we document the research on nutrition and holistic treatments for preventing and treating prostate cancer.
Dr. Mark Stengler NMD, MS, is a bestselling author in private practice in Encinitas, California, at the Stengler Center for Integrative Medicine. His newsletter, Dr. Stengler’s Health Breakthroughs, is available at www.markstengler.com and his product line at www.drstengler.com
