In 1,641 Asian patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer, radiotherapy lined up with shorter overall survival than prostatectomy

What the research found

A retrospective comparison was published on 11 November 2026. It used the Chang Gung Research Database in Taiwan. 1,641 patients with NCCN high-risk or very high-risk localized prostate cancer were treated with prostatectomy or radiotherapy between January 2005 and September 2021. Inverse probability of treatment weighting adjusted for age, prostate-specific antigen, clinical T stage, Gleason score, and comorbidity. The abstract does not give a mean age or a sex split. Prostate cancer in this cohort is a men's disease, so the audience tag is men. After weighting, radiotherapy versus prostatectomy had a higher hazard of death from any cause and of cancer-specific death. In the high-risk group the adjusted hazard ratio for overall survival was 1.81 (95 percent CI 1.00 to 3.33, p=0.038) and for cancer-specific survival 2.67 (95 percent CI 1.04 to 6.81, p=0.015). In the very high-risk group the figures were 2.24 (95 percent CI 1.49 to 3.36) and 2.82 (95 percent CI 1.67 to 4.77). Those ratios describe the radiotherapy group against surgery. This is a weighted record review, not a trial, and it is not a reason to choose an operation. DOI 10.1007/s11255-026-05449-x. Not medical advice.

Evidence level: Human study. A study in people, but an association isn't proof of cause.

Read the original at International Urology and Nephrology