Give prostate cancer the old ‘one-two’

Love him or hate him, the fact is that heavyweight champ Mike Tyson won his first 19 professional bouts with knockouts — 12 of them in the first round — by using the old “one-two” combination, a left jab followed by a right cross. That combination was clearly his most effective treatment.

Today, docs are throwing a onetwo combo at prostate cancer and, just as it did for the young Tyson, it’s paying off big time.

Until now, if you were diagnosed with prostate cancer that hadn’t spread beyond the prostate gland, a radical prostatectomy — removal of the entire prostate and some surrounding tissue — has been the gold standard for treatment.

In addition, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and even cryotherapy (freezing cancer cells with liquid nitrogen) have proven effective in individual cases.

Unfortunately, using any single treatment increases the odds that the cancer will return.

Now, an expanded followup to a 2009 study has confirmed that using a one-two combo of radiation therapy and hormone treatment is doubling the 10- and 15-year survival rate of men with locally advanced or high-risk local prostate cancer.

The researchers also point out that this double treatment doesn’t cause side effects that are much more difficult to deal with than those associated with solo hormone treatment.

So, if you are diagnosed with locally invasive prostate cancer, talk to your doctors about this effective knockout punch and explore your options for radiation therapy (there are several types) combined with hormone therapy.