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 Most men,
when they find out that they have prostate cancer, and that it’s
clinically localized —confined to the prostate, and curable with
surgery — want it out yesterday.Understandably,“they are anxious
to get something done right away, and most men have surgery within just
a few months of their initial diagnosis,” notes Alan W. Partin,
M.D., Ph.D.,David Hall McConnell Professor of Urology and director of
the Brady Urological Institute. Although any hold-up can seem too long
for a worried patient, the good news is that a modest delay of several
months is okay. “There is little evidence to suggest that it affects
the man’s outcome, or our ability to control the cancer.
”Partin has long known this
anecdotally, but recently studied this question of a few months’
delay between diagnosis and surgery in response to a study in the Canadian
Journal of Urology, which “cast unfounded doubt on the safety of
such a delay with respect to cancer control,” and needlessly worried
patients, Partin says.
Partin and colleagues analyzed the
medical records of 926 men who underwent surgery between January 1989
and December1994. All of them had the same surgeon —Patrick C. Walsh,
M.D. Some of these men were treated early — within two months —and
others had surgery at three, six, nine months or even more than a year
after diagnosis. The investigators found no significant difference in
the long-term cancer control rates of these men. These findings were published
in the Journal of Urology.
“Patients can be reassured,”
says Partin, “that there is no immediate urgency to perform surgery
after a prostate cancer diagnosis, especially in men with stage T1c disease
and biopsy Gleason scores less than 7.”
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