When your doctor delivers the terrible news that you have cancer, the last thing you want to worry about is whether his treatment recommendation is motivated by profit.

But a new study shows that men with prostate cancer have good reason to worry.

The standard treatments are surgery, radiation, and watchful waiting, also called active surveillance. Watchful waiting means having regular checkups to make sure the tumor isn’t spreading.

And it has one huge advantage: It doesn’t come with the horrible side effects of surgery and radiation, which can include impotence and incontinence.

Among men with low-grade tumors, the survival rate for all three treatments is the same.

A major new study from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston examined data on 17,982 men with localized prostate cancer. This is cancer that has not spread. It’s the most common type of prostate tumor and is found in 85% of men with prostate cancer.1

Localized prostate cancer is extremely slow moving. Even without any treatment, men have an excellent chance of surviving decades with no health impact from the disease.2

That’s why the study results are so disturbing.

It found that whether men undergo radiation treatment depends to a large degree on whether their doctor will profit from it. Men with localized prostate cancer are 89% more likely to get radiation if their doctor owns radiation equipment, the study showed.3

Doctors Push Unneeded Cancer Treatments to Boost Income

Dr. Karen Hoffman is a professor at MD Anderson. She is a senior author of the study.

“Our findings suggest that urologist ownership of radiation equipment may contribute to unnecessary treatment,” Dr. Hoffman said.4

The study recently was published in the online journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases.

Researchers found that urologists who own radiation equipment make $2,460 more per patient than urologists who don’t.

An earlier study questioned the value of ever treating localized prostate cancer with radiation or surgery. Research published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2016 found there was no difference in the survival rates among patients who had radiation, surgery, or active surveillance. All of them had a survival rate of 99%.

But the big difference, of course, is that men choosing active surveillance don’t have to deal with life-changing side effects.

Editor’s Note: We’ve uncovered one of the most shocking conspiracies of all time… A scheme to suppress a stunningly effective treatment for cancer…and keep it hidden from the patients who desperately need it. Check your inbox on Thursday for all the details. It could save your life or the life of a loved one.

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References:
1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3720162/
2 https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/mis-cancer-news-102/choosing-active-surveillance-doesn-t-impact-quality-of-life-for-men-with-low-risk-prostate-cancer-713217.html
3 http://www.nature.com/pcan/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/pcan20179a.html
4 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-prostate-radiotherapy-idUSKBN1792Z0