ST. LOUIS (KMOX)- A local prostate cancer specialist reacts to a new study that finds interrupting prostate cancer treatment could shorten a patient’s life.

KMOX Health Editor, Fred Bodimer reports in a new study, intermittent hormonal therapy for certain men with minimal metastatic prostate cancer proved to be less effective than continuous therapy.

Washington University School of Medicine professor and prostate cancer specialist, Dr. Bruce Roth says sometimes intermittent therapy is used to give a patient a break from the side effects of hormonal therapy.

“I realize that some patients will have intolerable toxicity and you have to discuss it in that situation, but I think that’s not the average patient,” Dr. Roth says. “My recommendation would be for continuous therapy.”

Dr. Roth says there’s obviously a price to pay for that, and it maybe up to individual patients to decide how badly they are effected by the side effects of therapy and whether they’re willing to trade-off the possibility of shorten survival.

“There is a two-year difference in survival favoring continuous therapy over intermittent therapy,” Dr. Roth says.

Men with minimal prostate cancer who received intermittent therapy had a median survival rate of 5.2 years compared with 7.1 years for those getting continuous therapy.