Prostate cancer treated more aggressively in the city

By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - Urban men with localized prostate cancer may be more likely to get surgery or radiation than their rural peers, a U.S. study suggests. Men had 23 percent higher odds of getting these aggressive treatments when they lived in densely populated U.S. counties than if they resided in rural counties, according to the analysis of cancer registry data for about 138,000 men. The conservative alternatives – watchful waiting or hormone therapy to shrink tumors without surgery or radiation – were more common in less populated areas, with 22 percent of rural men receiving this type of care compared with 19 percent of their urban counterparts.