According to a 2008 study that was first presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Boston, for men who are diagnosed with locally advanced prostate cancer adding radiation treatment to anti androgen hormone therapy reduces the risk of death from the disease by 50%.

The lead author of the study is Anders Widmark MD, who is a professor of radiation oncology at the Umea University in Sweden. “This randomized trial is the first to show that men with locally advanced prostate cancer will survive substantially longer when radiation is added to their treatment plan, he explained “I would encourage men with locally advanced prostate cancer to talk to their doctor to see if they would be a good candidate for radiation therapy in addition to hormone treatment.”

The clinical definition of locally advanced prostate cancer is one that has grown close to or outside the prostate gland into nearby tissue but has yet to spread to the lymph nodes or into any other organs in the area.

For the purposes of this particular study 880 patients were randomly selected. Anti androgen therapy was used to treat the cancer by effectively blocking the stimulant effect of testosterone on prostate cancer cells and to shrink the prostate itself, slowing the growth of new cancer cells. Randomly selected participants then also received external beam radiation therapy daily, which is the delivery of radiation to the prostate directly.

All patients began treatment with three months worth of an intense hormone therapy that is called total androgen block (or sometimes temporary castration) One group then continued on anti androgen therapy that allowed the return of   testosterone while the other continued the same hormone therapy as before with the addition of the radiation treatments.

The studies found that 18 percent of the patients who underwent only hormone therapy eventually died of prostate cancer while the rate was only 9% in the patients who received both hormone and radiation therapy.

The study ran between February 1996 and December 2002. Survivors of both groups were accessed at the four year mark and by that time researchers found little difference in the quality of life enjoyed by the two groups, with the exception of some “decreased social function” amongst the men who received the combination treatment.