There’s good news for men who have undergone therapy with focused radiation beams for Prostate cancer. The common treatment does not raise the risk of developing Bladder cancer, according to a new study.

Previous reports have suggested that, in women, using radiation therapy for gynecologic cancers at least doubles the risk of Bladder cancer, say researchers in The Journal of Urology. However, it is unclear if radiation therapy for Prostate cancer also has this effect.

To investigate, Dr. Bradley Leibovich and colleagues, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, analyzed data from 1743 patients who underwent radiation for Prostate cancer at their center between 1980 and 1998.

After several years of follow-up, Prostate cancer radiation was not tied to an elevated risk of Bladder cancer, the investigators report.

“The natural history of Bladder cancer in this population does not seem to be altered by radiation,” they add, “except that some patients seem to be diagnosed earlier.”

SOURCE: The Journal of Urology, July 2005.