Family History of Prostate Cancer Doesn't Affect Treatment

(January 4, 2009) - In a first of its kind study, a first-degree family history of prostate cancer has no impact on the treatment (Read about "Family Health History" "The Prostate" "Cancer Treatments") outcomes of prostate cancer patients treated with brachytherapy (also called seed implants). In addition, patients with this type of family history have clinical and pathologic characteristics similar to men with no family history of prostate cancer at all, according to a study in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology - Biology - Physics.

"This information is relevant for both physicians and patients with new diagnoses as they embark on complex treatment decisions," Christopher A. Peters, M.D., lead author of the study said. "Now patients with a family history of prostate cancer can be confident that they have the same outcomes as patients with sporadic disease, regardless of the treatment modality they chose."

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men. Many patients diagnosed with prostate cancer have some type of family history of the disease and men with a family history do have an increased risk of developing the disease, but there is conflicting data on how family history impacts treatment outcomes.

Researchers followed 1,738 prostate cancer patients, of which 187 had a family history of prostate cancer in a first-degree relative, for a median follow-up time of 60 months. They found that in the low-, intermediate- and high-risk groups, a family history of prostate cancer had little to no significance in men treated with brachytherapy. Previous studies done with prostate cancer patients receiving external beam radiation therapy or radical prostatectomy had similar findings.