Treatment of Prostate Cancer

There are a number of treatment options for prostate cancer. However, there is no right answer for the best prostate cancer treatment because there is generally a lack of good data from well-run trials to determine the best course of therapy overall. Some treatments also work better than others depending on the nature, stage and extent of the disease.  That’s one reason why it is so important to consult with several experts when making your treatment decision as well as considering other factors such as lifestyle, importance of sexual function and potential side effects. There are also a number of risk assessment tools such as the UCSF-CAPRA Score and the D’Amico classification as well as a number of nomograms can help guide your decision making process. Read more on choosing your prostate cancer treatment

Conventional Treatments for Prostate Cancer

The conventional treatment approach for prostate cancer can involve doing nothing (watchful waiting) to high-tech surgeries and/or anticancer treatments.

Watchful Waiting/Active Surveillance

You and your doctor may discuss “watchful waiting” or “active surveillance” (as it is also known), depending on the stage, level of risk, and other factors like your age and lifestyle priorities. This is the most basic treatment for prostate cancer, and it involves doing nothing more than keeping an eye on the situation, typically by returning to the doctor routinely for examinations to make sure the disease has not taken a turn for the worse. Read more on Watchful Waiting

Hormone Therapy

Male hormones are like fuel for prostate tumors, which cannot grow without them. Conventional hormone therapy is designed to reduce the levels of the fueling male hormones—primarily testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT)—and thereby starve the tumor. Read more on Hormone Therapy

Questions To Ask About Hormone Therapy

Side Effects of Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Radiation

Radiation therapy involves exposing the prostate and surrounding areas to x-rays or other types of radiation designed to destroy cancer cells or at least prevent them from growing and spreading. Read more on Radiation

Questions to Ask About Brachytherapy And Radiation Therapy

Side Effects of Radiation for Prostate Cancer

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy involves taking drugs that kill cancer cells or prevent them from multiplying. It is usually administered via intravenous lines and is reserved for men who have stage III or IV cancers. Read more on Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer

Questions To Ask About Chemotherapy

Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Surgery

The goal of prostate cancer surgery is to remove all the cancer, maintain the best possible urinary function, and have limited impact on sexual function. Removal of the prostate, a procedure called radical prostatectomy, is one of the main treatments for prostate cancer. Read more on Surgery for Prostate Cancer

Questions To Ask About Surgery for Prostate Cancer

Side Effects of Surgery

Cryosurgery

Cryosurgery involves inserting ultrathin cryoneedles into the prostate and freezing the entire gland. Read more on Cryosurgery

Side Effects of Cryosurgery

Ultrasound (HIFU)

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, or HIFU, an emerging therapy that destroys tissue with rapid heat that is focused on the malignancy in the prostate gland. Read more on HIFU

Side Effects of HIFU

See also

ED after prostate cancer treatment

Choosing your prostate cancer treatment

Side effects of prostate cancer treatment

Overview of Traditional Treatment Stages for Prostate Cancer

• After the initial diagnosis of prostate cancer, some men may be treated with surgery to remove the prostate while others may be treated with radiation therapy. Radiation therapy can be given through external beam radiation, radioactive seeds, or a combination of both.
• After surgery or radiation therapy, your PSA levels are monitored. If your PSA levels begin to rise, the cancer may be coming back. At this point, your doctor may recommend hormone therapy. There are many different kinds of hormone therapy and you may receive one kind or several kinds, depending on what your doctor determines is best for you. As a result of hormone therapy, your PSA levels should remain low.
• If your PSA levels start to rise while on hormone therapy, you may be hormone refractory (meaning it does not respond to hormone treatment). In addition, if the cancer has spread outside the prostate gland, you may have metastatic disease (meaning the cancer has spread to other parts of the body).This may mean that the prostate cancer has become advanced. Your doctor may choose immunotherapy, such as PROVENGE, if you have few or no prostate cancer pain-related symptoms. For men who have significant cancer-related pain, chemotherapy is an option.
• After one type of chemotherapy, a different type of chemotherapy or a different hormone therapy are options.

Alternative Treatments for Prostate Cancer

A wide variety of alternative and complementary treatment options are available for prostate cancer and are sometimes used in conjunction with conventional therapies.

Diet

Once diagnosed with a prostate disease, it’s important to take immediate steps to provide your body with the best nutrition for maximum immunity and prostate health. Certain foods have significant cancer fighting properties while others can harm your prostate. In fact, the foods you choose and the way you live your life have a major impact on whether or not you will develop prostate problems, and especially prostate cancer. Cancer experts and nutrition and diet studies estimate that our food choices account for up to 90 percent of cancers of the prostate, breast, pancreas, and colon. Even lung cancer is believed to have a dietary link.  If you’re skeptical, consider the rates of prostate cancer in China compared with those in North America. In 2002, there were 1.6 cases of prostate cancer for every 100,000 males in China, compared with 120 cases per 100,000 in North America. That’s 75 times the rate in China! (Parkin 2005) More on The Prostate Diet

Lifestyle

Maintaining a prostate friendly lifestyle is extremely important for overall prostate health and reducing your risk of prostate cancer. In fact, lifestyle can actually contribute to prostate cancer including certain work environments, having exposure to chemicals, being sedentary, eating high fat diets and consuming excess red meat and other foods with limited nutritional value amongst many other things. Indeed, most experts believe that lifestyle and diet are the leading contributors to the high levels of prostate cancer in more developed nations like the USA and Europe as compared to Asia and less developed countries. On the flip side, stress management, meditation, nutrition and diet, natural therapies, supplements, weight loss and exercise have all been shown to positively influence the risk of getting prostate cancer. Taking daily positive steps to influence your prostate health through lifestyle changes will determine how strong your defenses are to fight against disease.  More on The 6 Pillars of Prostate Health

Herbal and Nutritional Supplements

Supplements can support an overall wellness program for prostate cancer. Those that have demonstrated a benefit for prostate health include omega 3, astragalus, cat’s claw, essiac tea, rye pollen, quercetin, ginseng, green tea, potassium, vitamin D, lycopene, cayenne pepper, pomegranate, curcumin and vitamin C as well as many others. More on Supplements for Prostate Cancer

Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Both of these Eastern medicine models use a combination of natural approaches, to combat cancer and strengthen the physical and emotional bodies and overall immunity. Read more about Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine

Antineoplaston Therapy

This is an unproven alternative method based on the theory that the body defends itself in two ways: through the immune system and the natural biochemical defense system. Read more about antineoplaston

Livingston-Wheeler Therapy

This approach is based on the theory that a microbe, Progenitor cryptocides, is responsible for the development of cancer when the immune system is weakened. Read more about livingston-Wheeler therapy

Revici’s Guided Chemotherapy

The theory behind this alternative cancer treatment is that cancer is caused by imbalances in lipids (fats and similar substances) in the body. Read more about Revici’s guided chemotherapy

Shark Cartilage

The theory that shark cartilage can cure prostate cancer is based on the belief that a compound in shark cartilage is able to slow or stop the growth of blood vessels that tumors need to survive and grow. Read more about shark cartilage

Biologic Therapy

Biologic therapy is a treatment in which the patient’s immune system is employed to fight the cancer. Read more about biologic therapy