Prostate cancer treatment could be deadly
I've long said that in the majority of cases of prostate cancer, patients are far more likely to die from something else before the cancer gets them.
But even I was a little surprised to learn that the "something else" could very well be the cancer treatment. A new study found that when older men were treated with hormone-blocking drugs, they were more likely to die during the next six years than their peers who didn't receive treatment for their cancer.
This finding was the result of a study of 20,000 Medicare patients who were treated with drugs even though their prostate cancer had not spread. Historically, hormone blockers have been used in conjunction with surgery or radiation once the cancer has started to advance.
But evidently doctors are feeling the heat to offer a non-surgical treatment option beyond the standard wait-and-see approach. So, they've been writing scripts for those hormone blockers, which work by suppressing androgen production that has been linked to cancer. Of course, cancer patients would be better served by a sit-down heart-to-heart rather than a knee-jerk reaction that only helps the doctors feel more comfortable.
Seems to me there's something odd about doctors forging ahead with treatment that actually increases your chances of dying.
The problem is, so many doctors are afraid of being sued, they've turned into church mice, afraid to stick their necks out and speak up. If the best option is to take a wait-and-see approach, then by God, that's what you have to advise your patient until he understands.
If you've been given a prostate cancer diagnosis, talk to your doctor. Lay it all out—your hopes, your fears, what you need to know to get through this. Tread lightly when it comes to these hormone-blocking drugs—they also present a handful of serious side effects that include an increased risk for diabetes and heart disease.
When it comes to treating cancer, there's something much more important than being aggressive—that's being smart.
