Quality of Life Associated with Treatments for Prostate Cancer

Because the optimal treatment for men with localized prostate cancer remains undefined — given the great heterogeneity of the disease and a lack of prospective comparative studies — gaining a better understanding of the short- and long-term adverse effects associated with interventions is critical.

To that end, investigators performed a prospective, population-based, cohort study to compare functional outcomes during 5 years of treatment for 2005 men with favorable- or unfavorable-risk localized prostate cancer diagnosed in 2011 and 2012. Patients were recruited from five Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registries and an observational prostate cancer registry. Patients completed surveys regarding disease-specific function and gene…