This is a compelling read for anyone newly diagnosed, highlighting why it’s so difficult to determine the best course of treatment. To me, the most telling statement in the article was:
The loser for the ensuing 35 or so years has been the patient. We really have no clear idea at all what “the best” way is to treat a man with clinically significant, localized prostate cancer who really does need early whole gland treatment, … and we haven’t known for decades.
If the experts can’t figure out the best treatment option, then how are we as laymen supposed to be able to figure it out?
From the perspective of the disinterested observer, one of the very least edifying aspects of issues related to the management of prostate cancer has been the nearly 50-year-long “discussion” between the urology community and the radiation oncology community about the most appropriate way(s) to treat localized disease.
Prior to the initiation of the ongoing ProtecT trial in the UK, there had only ever been three, very small, “completed” trials that made any attempt to randomize patients with localized prostate cancer to radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. These three trials were conducted by the Uro-Oncology Research Group between 1974 and 1978, and the results were reported by Paulson et al. between (if memory serves) 1979 and 1984. The trial results were based on data from small subsets of the patients, and for a summary of the list of problems said to be associated with at least one of these studies and…
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Dan's Journey through Prostate Cancer 