Surgery in Cancer of the Prostate

To the Editor:— An opinion expressed inThe Journal, March 7, page 855, in answer to a query from a doctor in California is entirely false and is not held, I am sure, by a majority of urologists. Carcinoma of the prostate differs from carcinoma elsewhere in the body in no particular respect so far as treatment is concerned except for the newer procedures of diethylstilbestrol and castration. An early diagnosis of carcinoma of the prostate can and has been repeatedly made, and when made by the urologist trained to do radical prostatectomy, it can and has been repeatedly cured. The problem is one of early diagnosis, and this has been made and confirmed when the lesion is not larger than 1 cm. in diameter. In these cases, confirmation has usually been made by frozen section after perineal exposure, and if after such biopsy the presumptive clinical diagnosis has been