Know Your Treatment Options for Prostate Cancer

Being diagnosed with prostate cancer is a life-changing experience.

If you are at all concerned about prostate cancer, visit your doctor immediately. The three primary treatment paths that he or she may discuss with you for localized prostate cancer include active surveillance, surgery, and radiation therapy.

The good news is both surgery and radiation therapy can cure over 90% of men with localized cancer.

Here’s an overview of the treatments:

Active Surveillance
For those men diagnosed with slow-growing cancers, immediate treatment might not be recommended because of the side effects inherent in other therapies. Recent studies have shown that men over the age of 65 with low-grade cancers can do very well with this approach.

Surgery
Since prostate cancer grows through a number of small tumors scattered throughout the prostate, the entire prostate plus some surrounding tissue must be removed. Depending on how much tissue outside the prostate must be removed, side effects can include damage to nerves that can lead to incontinence and erectile dysfunction. Fortunately, great strides have been made in nerve-sparing procedures.

Radiation Therapy
Oncologists can kill prostate cancer cells by delivering high doses of x-rays to the prostate via external-beam or intensity-modulated radiation therapy. Or they can inject small radioactive pellets into the prostate, a therapy called brachytherapy. Over the course of a year, the radioactive matter degrades, leaving harmless pellets inside the prostate. For many, proton therapy offers a new treatment option. However, this therapy is relatively new and costly and patient access is still limited.

PCF research funding is giving men more treatment options

When the PCF was founded in 1993, there were only seven approved drugs for treating prostate cancer. Today, there are 13, with many more in the pipeline. As the world’s largest philanthropic supporter of prostate cancer research, the PCF has raised more than $370 million for research at nearly 200 institutions worldwide.

Thanks to people like you who support our research, men who are fighting prostate cancer have more options than ever before and are living longer, more productive lives.

All of the information in this article is from PCF’s “Report to the Nation on Prostate Cancer: A Guide for Men and Their Families.” To learn more from this valuable resource, you may order your free copy here.