Prostate Cancer Treatments
The main treatment options are surgery, Radiotherapy, Hormonal therapy and various combinations of all three. The choice of treatment for Prostate Cancer will be influenced by a wide range of factors. An important consideration is the individual's age and general state of health. A second is the appearance of the tumor cells when examined under a microscope to determine how active the tumor is and how likely it is to spread to other parts of the body. A third factor is the stage of the tumor at diagnosis.
The physician will consider all these factors before deciding on the most appropriate treatment option which could be one of the following:
- Watchful waiting
- Radical prostatectomy
- External beam radiotherapy
- Radiotherapy using radioactive 'seeds' of iodine
- The use of medicines to suppress the production of the male sex hormones
- Medicines to slow down the growth of tumor cells
Progress following any of the treatment options will likely be followed by regular monitoring by rectal examination and by blood tests to establish PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) levels in the blood. The PSA is not fail safe in indicating the presence of cancer but is used as one of several indicators. Several other prostate gland markers are also being researched and could eventually replace the PSA test.
Full details of the treatments described are to be found in "I survived prostate cancer" together with a description of the possible side effects and my own personal experience of treatment.
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