Аннотация:Prostatectomy or Watchful Waiting in Prostate Cancerto the editor: In their article comparing prostatectomy with watchful waiting, Holmberg et al. (Sept.12 issue) 1 present their analysis according to the intention-to-treat principle, but the true treatment effect might be larger than that observed because of noncompliance with the protocol. 2Presentation of information on the outcome in the participants who did not comply with the protocol and an additional per-protocol analysis could give more insight into the real treatment effect.In addition, the authors report a statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of distant metastases.However, outside of the protocol, untreated men might undergo a search for metastases more often than treated men.Such a difference could have serious implications for the conclusions drawn by the authors.
