What role does our culture play in how men deal with how men deal with side effects of treatment?

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Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Department of Urology, Geffen School of Medicine, University of

California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles,

CA, USA; Department of Urology, Tohoku University Graduate School of

Medicine, Sendai, Japan.

We assessed the impact of bother with urinary and bowel dysfunction on

social activities among men in Japan and the United States following primary

therapy for localized prostate cancer. In paired longitudinal outcomes

studies, we measured general and disease-specific health-related quality of

life in 400 Japanese and 427 American men who underwent radical

prostatectomy or brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer. Outcomes

included the social function domain of the Medical Outcomes Study Short

Form-36 and the University of California, Los Angeles Prostate Cancer Index,

all of which are scored 0-100. Participants completed the questionnaires

before and 1, 12 and 24 months after treatment. Among men who reported any

urinary bother, Japanese men had slightly better urinary function than

American men (84 vs 77, P<0.01). Before brachytherapy, urinary bother was

weakly correlated with social function in both the countries; after

brachytherapy, urinary bother was strongly correlated with social function

in American but not Japanese men. After brachytherapy, bowel dysfunction had

a stronger correlation with social function in American than Japanese men

(P<0.05). The bother associated with urinary and bowel dysfunction after

surgery or brachytherapy for prostate cancer has a greater impact on social

function in American men than in Japanese men.

Written by

Namiki S, Kwan L, Kagawa-Singer M, Terai A, Satoh T, Baba S, Arai Y, Litwin

MS.

Reference

Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2008 Apr 8. Epub ahead of print.

doi:10.1038/pcan.2008.20

PubMed Abstract

PMID:18392046