Nonmedical factors in treatment selection.

Given that no therapy for localized prostate cancer has been proven superior to any other in well-designed clinical trials, the patient and physician may be influenced toward a particular therapy by a number of nonmedical factors. These factors can be logistic, socioeconomic, or related to the patient's perception of the disease and expectations concerning the disease. These factors, along with the absence of a clearly superior therapy, account, at least in part, for the tremendous variance in patterns of care by age, geography, race and education.