Long-term outcomes for radiotherapy and prostatectomy are similar.

In an article published in NEJM (2013) the authors studied 1655 patients enrolled in the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study. All has localised prostate cancer and were aged 55-64 at treatment. Two thirds had surgery and the rest radiotherapy. At 2 and 5 years those having surgery were 5-6 times more likely to have incontinence and 2-3.5 times mire likely to have erectile dysfunction, but bowel urgency was 50-60% less likely. There were no differences in these outcomes at 15 years.