Study Shows Radiotherapy Reduces Risk of Death from Prostate Cancer by Half

A longitudinal Nordic study has shown that a combination of pill-based hormone therapy and local radiotherapy can halve the risk of death from prostate cancer 15 years after diagnosis.

The results of the study were published in the May 2016 issue of the journal European Urology. The researchers compared the results of treatment using only a standard Nordic pill-based therapy (the hormone antiandrogen) and the same therapy with the addition of local radiotherapy. Treatment using antiandrogens slows down the growth of the cancer cells. A follow-up term of 15 years after diagnosis showed that the treatment that included radiotherapy reduced the risk of patients dying from prostate cancer by half, from 34% to 17%. Approximately 9,000 patients are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in Sweden.


The Researchers from Umeå University (Umeå, Sweden), and from Norway, and Denmark, followed 875 patients who had been treated for locally advanced prostate, or aggressive prostate cancer between the years 1996 and 2002. The patients were from approximately 40 clinics in Sweden and Norway.

The leader of the study, Anders Widmark, senior physician and professor, Umeå University, said, "When we published the first results of this study in the Lancet in 2009, we contributed to changing the attitude towards radiotherapy for older patients with advanced prostate cancer. In this follow-up study, we present even more evident results that clearly show how patients who previously were considered incurable, to a large extent can be cured and that these patients should therefore be offered radiotherapy as an additional treatment. We are also in the process of evaluating how hormone therapy against prostate cancer affects the patients' quality of life. We will publish that study shortly."

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