A new study suggests that adding radiation therapy to hormone therapy improves the chances of survival for men with prostate cancer that has spread to nearby lymph nodes. Investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cancer Center focused on 318 patients treated with hormone therapy alone and 318 who received hormone therapy and radiation therapy. The five-year death risk among those who received the combination therapy was 50 percent lower than among those who received hormone therapy alone, the findings showed. The study was published online May 11 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. A summary was published in the Prostate Cancer Foundation June NewsPulse. “It appears that more aggressive local management of prostate cancer confined to the pelvis can offer more durable disease control, prevent the disease from spreading further and, for some patients, even provide a potential cure,” senior study author Dr. Jason Efstathiou, of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cancer Center and department of radiation oncology, said in a hospital news release.