In a large clinical trial, short-term hormone therapy in combination with radiation therapy proved a more effective treatment than radiation therapy alone for men with intermediate-risk, early-stage prostate cancer.
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing has enabled earlier diagnosis of prostate cancer. But treatments for prostate cancer were mostly developed and tested against later stage, bulkier tumors. The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, a clinical cooperative group funded by NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), set out to test treatments for early-stage prostate cancer. The researchers enrolled nearly 2,000 men with early-stage prostate cancer. All had localized prostate cancer and PSA levels of less than 20 nanograms per milliliter. Because prostate cancer rates are higher among African-American men, the study enrolled nearly 400 African-American patients.