According to a new prostate cancer study recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 'conservative management' of the tumor is probably the best strategy for most men over 65 years with localized prostate cancer.

The study, which draws a comparison between modern results and those obtained before 1990, elaborated that the conservative management strategy can be described as "benign neglect" of the cancer - meaning wait and treat only if symptoms crop up.

The team of researchers from the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, led by epidemiologist Grace Lu-Yao, said that, compared to the 1990s, men diagnosed of locally- confined prostate cancer have a 60 percent lower risk of dying within a decade of being diagnosed of the cancer.

The researchers further added that, before the 1990s, men with so-called intermediate-risk cancer faced 15-23 percent death risk within ten years of the diagnosis; which post-1990 had been lowered to 2-6 percent. In addition, only 4-11 percent of the men needed chemotherapy, radiation or surgery to lessen the cancer symptoms during the follow-up period.

The findings by Lu-Yao and her colleagues were based on the data collected by the government's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry - which depends on Medicare data. Having studied the statistics pertaining to 14,516 men with prostate cancer, aged more than 66 years, the researchers found that none of the men had received treatment in the first six months after diagnosis.