Radiation vs. Surgery for Prostate Cancer | Ask a Prostate Expert, Mark Scholz, MD

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07/07/23

The perennial decision for patients who require treatment for prostate cancer is whether they should have surgery (radical prostatectomy) or radiation therapy. Since urologists typically make the prostate cancer diagnosis and are oftentimes the ones who perform the surgery, and since radiation has only been a consistently effective treatment since the advent of IMRT in the last 20 or so years (remembering that studies take years to decades to complete and opinions take even longer to change) patients oftentimes automatically undergo surgery assuming it is the logical thing to do. However, clinical trials have demonstrated that radiation therapy has a lower side effect rate while achieving equal or better cure rates (depending on the stage of cancer).

0:05 Why is surgery usually the first (and sometimes the only) treatment offered to men for prostate cancer?

2:52 How do overall long-term cure rates compare between surgery and radiation?

4:06 Are there studies that compare surgery vs. radiation?

Don’t know your stage? Take the quiz: Visit http://www.prostatecancerstaging.org

To learn more about prostate cancer visit http://www.pcri.org

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