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Men who undergo aggressive treatments for prostate cancer, like surgery and radiation, are at high risk of suffering from urine leakage and sexual dysfunctions for at least the first 15 years of the treatment, says a new study.

The study included more than 1,500 men between the ages of 55 and 74 enrolled in the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study (PCOS). In the study group, 1,164 or more than 70 percent had undergone prostatectomy (a kind of surgery to treat prostate cancer) and about 30 percent or 491 men had undergone radiotherapy. The men had completed a survey at the beginning of the study about their health and quality of life. The men were surveyed again after treatment and were asked about treatment outcomes and their quality of life. 

Men who underwent surgery were more likely to have problems with urinary leakage and erectile dysfunction than men who underwent radiation therapy, the study found.

However, these problems disappeared, or at least became less severe, some 15 years after treatment.

"At the two- and five-year time points, men who underwent prostatectomy were more likely to suffer from urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction than men who received radiation therapy. While treatment-related differences were significant in the early years following treatment, those differences became far less pronounced over time," said Matthew Resnick, M.D., instructor in Urologic Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, according to a news release.

Researchers found that some 15 years after prostate cancer therapy, about 80 percent of the surgery group and more than 90 percent of the radiation group reported sexual difficulties.

Prostate cancer occurs in tissues of the prostate - a gland that is present below the bladder and in front of the rectum in men. National Cancer Institute says that an estimated 241,740 new cases will be diagnosed and about 28,000 men will die from the cancer in the U.S.

Previous research from Harvard on the subject published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that men diagnosed with prostate cancer are less likely to die from the cancer and more likely to die from preventable diseases like diabetes and heart problems.

Researchers from the present study say that aggressive therapies for cancer will have significant side-effects and that active surveillance is the key to improving treatment outcomes for prostate cancer.

"Regardless of the form of initial treatment, patients in this study had significant declines in sexual and urinary function over the duration of the study. The causes of these declines probably include advancing age and additional cancer therapies, in addition to the original therapy. Patients need to be aware that all aggressive therapies for prostate cancer have significant side effects and perhaps these data make an argument for active surveillance (avoiding aggressive treatment and closely following the cancer) in certain cases," said David Penson, M.D., from Vanderbilt Center for Surgical Quality and Outcomes Research and the senior author of the study.

The study is published in the journal New England Journal of Medicine.