Experience With Orchiectomy for Carcinoma of the Prostate

The wave of enthusiasm for performing orchiectomy in the treatment of carcinoma of the prostate seems to have passed its crest. As experience has accumulated and patients have been observed for longer periods of time it has become apparent that the beneficial early effects, so eagerly reported at first, are not the whole story. Some writers are now questioning the advisability of routinely performing orchiectomy for carcinoma of the prostate and others are denouncing the operation. However, its fate probably will not be the limbo to which orchiectomy for benign prostatic enlargement was finally relegated at the turn of the century. The disillusionment caused by the discovery that there has not been found, after all, a cure for cancer of the prostate should not cause the too hasty repudiation of a procedure which offers some help, where there was so little hope before. The palliation affected by the operation is