TUESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- Freezing the prostate to kill cancer, a procedure called cryotherapy, may be as effective as more common treatments such as radiation, U.S. researchers report in the first such follow-up study spanning 10 years.

In this procedure, thin needles are placed into the prostate through which super-cooled argon gas is circulated -- reducing the temperature to up to -150 degrees centigrade. The technique freezes the prostate, killing the cancer it contains.

But the method remains controversial, and is currently the least-used method for treating prostate cancer in the United States.

"One of the reasons cryotherapy is controversial is we didn't know the long-term results," said study co-author Dr. Ralph Miller, director of the prostate center at the Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. "It really takes 10 years of good follow-up before you can tell how well a treatment works, because prostate cancer typically grows slowly," he said.

The 10-year follow-up study is the first of its kind, Miller noted. It found that clinical outcomes "are basically the same as seed implant radiation and external radiation therapy, the other minimally invasive therapies," he said.

Miller's team reviewed the cases of 370 men who underwent cryotherapy as first-line treatment for various stages of prostate cancer, according to the report in the March issue of Urology.

During an average of 12.5 years of follow-up, the researchers found that men with low-risk prostate cancer had a nearly 81 percent disease-free survival rate after undergoing cryotherapy. In addition, more than 74 percent of men with moderate-risk prostate cancer and almost 46 percent of men with high-risk malignancies experienced disease-free survival over the long follow-up period.

"These findings are confirmation that cryotherapy is another viable treatment option for prostate cancer," Miller said. "There are probably 10- to 15,000 of these procedures done each year in the United States," he noted.

More than 60,000 prostate surgeries are performed in the U.S. each year and some 50,000 men receive implanted radiation. About 30,000 men will also undergo external radiation for prostate cancer, according to Dr. Nelson Neal Stone, a clinical professor of urology and radiation oncology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

Men trying to decide which treatment is best for them may now also want to consider cryotherapy, knowing that the results will be similar to other choices, Miller said. Patients can turn to cryotherapy after failing radiation therapy, he noted.

Cryotherapy may also be a good option for patients who are likely to fail radiation therapy or for those who have a prostate obstruction that causes them trouble urinating, he added.

In addition, patients with advanced prostate cancer may also benefit from cryotherapy in lieu of radiation, Miller said. "For some patients it's a good first choice," he said.

According to Miller, cryotherapy is offered at a number of hospitals around the country but it is not as common as radiation and surgery.

Risks associated with cryotherapy are the same as those of other prostate cancer treatments and include incontinence, impotence and not being cured, Miller said.

One expert was more skeptical, however.

"While it's very good that this study has long follow-up and the results look reasonable, there is no way to know how the results really compare to any standard treatment like surgery or radiation therapy -- this is not a randomized trial," noted Dr. Anthony D'Amico, the chief of radiation oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

In a randomized trial, patients are randomly sent to receive one treatment or another, and the outcomes are then directly compared. The only way you can really tell if cryotherapy is as good as more conventional treatments is in this type of head-to-head comparison, D'Amico said.

"I don't want people to say that cryotherapy is equivalent to surgery or radiation and should be used as primary treatment for men with localized prostate cancer," he said. "Before one would adopt this treatment you really need a randomized trial because I would have to be convinced that it was as good as surgery or radiation for me to want to adopt it -- I think it's still experimental."

More information

For more information on prostate cancer, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

FRIDAY, March 28 (HealthDay News) -- A combination of testosterone and progestin suppresses sperm production faster and more completely than testosterone alone, according to an analysis by an international team of researchers.

The scientists said that hormonal contraception may become a safe, effective and reversible form of male birth control.

"It is possible to suppress sperm output to concentrations that are comparable with reliable contraception in most, but not all men. The rate of suppression is comparable to that achieved after a vasectomy," lead author Peter Y. Liu, an associate professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, said in a prepared statement.

Testosterone and other male hormones create "negative feedback" in the male reproductive system, which suppresses sperm production.

In this study, Liu and colleagues analyzed 30 male hormonal contraceptive studies that included a total of 1,756 men, aged 18 to 51. In these studies, conducted from 1990 to 2006, the men received different preparations of testosterone, with or without various preparations of the hormone progestin.

Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone. Progestin (a synthetic progesterone), which is used in combination with estrogen for female contraception, is not ordinarily produced by men.

The analysis revealed that the combination of testosterone and progestin was more effective at suppressing sperm production that testosterone alone.

"Progestin co-administered with testosterone increased both the rate and extent of suppression. It also may make long-term hormonal contraception safer by reducing the dose of testosterone needed for maintenance contraception," Liu said.

The analysis also showed that treatment suppressed sperm output more quickly in white males but not as completely as in non-whites. Younger men with lower testosterone levels also had faster sperm production suppression.

The review authors also found that it's difficult to predict which men will respond best to this combination hormonal contraception.

"Considerable progress has been made toward finding an effective combination of these two hormones. However, the current analysis didn't take into account the different types of progestins, so more research will need to be done to find the optimum therapy," Liu said.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about birth control  .

FRIDAY, March 28 (HealthDay News) -- Men typically continue to smoke and drink while their female partner is pregnant and after she's given birth, which can make it difficult for women to stop smoking and drinking during pregnancy and more likely to resume such habits after their child is born, a University of Washington study says.

"The months after childbirth are critical for intervening with mothers," study co-author Jennifer Bailey, a research scientist affiliated with the Social Development Research Group in the UW's School of Social Work, said in a prepared statement.

"For example, many already have done the hard work of quitting smoking and haven't smoked a cigarette in six months or more. We should support that effort so that they can continue as nonsmokers. However, we know if dad is smoking or drinking, it is more likely that mom will resume smoking or drinking," Bailey said.

She and her colleague Karl Hill, a research associate professor of social work, studied hundreds of Seattle mothers' and fathers' month-by-month substance use over a three-year period that included pregnancy. They found that:

• 77 percent of female cigarette smokers and 50 percent of female marijuana smokers used those substances at some time during pregnancy.
• 38 percent of female cigarette smokers and 24 percent of marijuana users said they used these substances throughout their pregnancies.
• Overall rates of women's use of cigarettes, marijuana and alcohol declined during pregnancy, but the rates of use started to increase during the first six months after giving birth.
• Month by month during pregnancy, rates of smoking among women varied between 7 percent and 21 percent, rates of binge drinking varied between 2 percent and 3 percent, and rates of marijuana use varied between 8 percent and 9 percent.

The researchers said their findings highlight the need for more public health education and intervention.

"Women who are pregnant want the best for their baby and typically reduce their drinking and smoking. But after birth, part of their motivation to limit alcohol use and quit using cigarettes and marijuana is taken away. If their partner is still smoking, for example, they might think, 'Boy, that cigarette smells good,'" Bailey said.

"There are two ways we need to reach parents," Hill said in a prepared statement. "Pregnancy health-care providers need to talk to both fathers and mothers about their smoking, drinking and marijuana use. Pregnancy seems like such a great public health opportunity to reach parents, but no one is talking to dads, and this study shows that they are not changing their substance use behavior. What dads do matters, and we want them to reduce their substance use."

More information

The American Lung Association has more about smoking during pregnancy  .