Study Helps Men Choose Prostate Cancer Options

Article date: May 5, 2010

Hearing the words, “you have prostate cancer,” is shocking and frightening. It’s also too common. Approximately 192,000 men received a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2009 alone.

If you're one of them, you may feel overwhelmed by your treatment options. A new study can help.

Deciding on a treatment

Should you have surgery, radiation, or some combination of both? Hormone therapy? Monitor it with the help of your physician? Your doctor, friends, and relatives may all have different opinions about which treatment is right for you. You may hear everything from, “Joe got the seed implant,” to “surgery is the only way to go.” Turn to the Internet for information on “prostate cancer treatments,” and you'll get a list of over 2,660,000 articles!

To help you better understand your options and find the right treatment for you, experts in prostate cancer from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the University of Colorado Cancer Center, and the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service have developed a new study called Healing Choices for Prostate Cancer.

“If a patient sees a radiologist, one can expect radiation as a recommended treatment. If they see a surgeon, then surgery often leads the list of options. This study offers a neutral platform that explores and explains all the available options and helps patients identify the treatment choice that is best for them," says Dr. Michael Diefenbach of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the study's lead investigator.

How the Healing Choices for Prostate Cancer study works

If you have been recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and have not yet begun any treatment, you may be eligible to participate in the study. Just call a toll-free number and answer a few questions to ensure you qualify. You will then receive information on prostate cancer treatment options. The information will be provided to you either as a printed booklet or in the form of electronic media (you’ll be sent a CD or directed to the Internet, or both).

You'll then receive 2 follow-up calls during the next 9 months. You’ll speak with an interviewer, just as you did during the first call. The purpose of these follow-up calls is to find out whether the information helped you make a treatment decision. The phone calls are confidential and all 3 calls combined will take approximately 40 minutes.

To Participate in the Study

Simply call toll- free: 1-866-258-1981 and ask for the Healing Choices for Prostate Cancer study. For more information, visit: www.prostatehealingchoices.com.

Reviewed by: Members of the ACS Medical Content Staff

ACS News Center stories are provided as a source of cancer-related news and are not intended to be used as press releases.