Surgery appears to be a better treatment option for early prostate cancer than “watchful waiting,” particularly for younger patients, according to a Swedish study.

In the first clinical trial examining the impact of surgically removing the prostate gland, the team followed 347 randomly chosen patients for the procedure, and closely watched 348 others, according to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The assessment of the nearly 700 men, who averaged 65 years when diagnosed, found that after 15 years, 48 per cent of the men in the surgical group died, compared with 58 percent in the closely watched group.

For the surgical group, 16 per cent died of the prostate cancer, compared to 23 per cent for those being watched.

The risk of cancer spreading “beyond the prostate gland was 12 per cent lower for those who received surgery.”

The study found that the younger men in the study, those aged around 65 – benefited most from surgery, while going under the knife presented fewer benefits for older patients.

“Not everybody benefits from surgery, so individual risks and potential gains have to be assessed on the basis of age, other illnesses, tumour type and patient preferences,” cautioned Anna Bill-Axelson, chief physician at the Department of Surgical Sciences at Sweden’s Uppsala University.

Surgical patients whose tumours grew beyond the prostate gland also ran a “seven-times-greater risk of mortality” due to prostate cancer than those whose tumours were limited to the gland, also warned the report.