Radiotherapy with ADT for 6 months doubles PCa survival rates

Combining radiotherapy with 6 months of androgen deprivation therapy doubles the survival chances of men with locally advanced prostate cancer, according to Australian researchers.

The 10-year study, conducted by researchers at the University of Newcastle and Calvary Mater Newcastle, included 802 men from Australia and New Zealand with locally advanced prostate cancer who were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: radiotherapy alone, radiotherapy with 3 months of ADT, and radiotherapy with 6 months of ADT.

The rate of prostate cancer death for men receiving radiotherapy with 6 months’ ADT was reduced to 11%, compared with 22% for men receiving radiotherapy alone.

"The challenge has been to determine the right length of hormone therapy that treats the cancer but produces minimal side effects," said first author Jim Denham, MD. "With this research, we now know that 6 months of hormone therapy with radiotherapy will provide a very effective treatment for locally advanced prostate cancer over the next decade."

Another key finding was that 6 months of ADT with radiation for locally advanced prostate cancers reduces the total death rate of all men by one-third. The results also showed that a treatment of radiotherapy with 3 months of hormone therapy did not prevent the cancer from spreading and yielded similar death rates to radiotherapy alone.

Study results were recently published online in The Lancet Oncology (March 24, 2011).