Description: For men with advanced prostate cancer, starting hormone therapy quickly comes with benefits and risks that may -- in some cases -- cancel each other out, according to new guidelines issued by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"The message is that immediate use of hormones does reduce the risk of dying of prostate cancer by about 17 percent," explained the guidelines' lead author, Dr. Andrew Loblaw, a radiation oncologist at Toronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Center in Canada. "But also, early use of hormone therapy increased the risk of dying of something else by about 15 percent, so there is no survival advantage. This is something that men and their physicians need to discuss," he said.