Toronto: The Canadian researchers are launching a large multi-year international study, in order to find a way to help the men diagnosed with prostate cancer. The study will assist in deciding whether to choose for potentially life-altering treatments or choose a watch and wait approach.

The Canadian Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Canada has said that it is believed that the START (Surveillance Therapy Against Radical Treatment) trial will resolve one of the difficult dilemmas in prostate cancer care.

Heather Logan, director of cancer control policy with the Canadian Cancer Society, “It’s answering some questions that we really need some answers to. Does active treatment at the time of diagnosis really make a difference in terms of long-term survival from prostate cancer?”

In Canada, the Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men. According to estimates of cancer society, 22,300 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 4,300 will die from it in Canada.

It’s expected that it will take 4 to 5 years to enroll all the patients, who will then be followed for between 10 to 15 years.

Dr. Laurence Klotz, the chief urologist at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, is the principal investigator. He said, “You elect to avoid risk of prostate cancer death by having treatment, you incur very major risk of erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, rectal problems if you have radiation and so on.”

Klotz said that choosing to take no immediate action is a particularly difficult one, running counter to what he calls society’s “cancer hysteria” – this is like the equation of a cancer diagnosis with a death sentence.

There are many men with prostate cancer who need to undergo treatment to prevent the disease of disease.