Prostate Cancer Surgery And Other Treatment Options

Added: 01/26/2006

If you have recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, you have a wide variety of options for treatment. Different treatments are used for the different stages of cancer, but the mainstays of treatment are prostate cancer surgery and radiation. Both of these treatments have their own subsets, but overall, they are equally effective. Choosing which form of prostate cancer treatment to pursue is a big decision, so being informed about the options is important.

Over 200,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed each year. Fortunately, much attention has been given to this disease, so there are a variety of treatment options available. Treatment options vary based on the stage and grade of the cancer, but most aim to cure the cancer or if incurable, to stop the growth.

One of the hallmarks of prostate cancer treatment is prostate cancer surgery, or prostatectomy. The goal of prostate cancer surgery is to remove the cancerous tissue in the prostate and in any localized tissues if it has spread. Over all grades and stages of the disease, prostate cancer surgery has a seventy to eighty percent cure rate. The cure rates are higher in earlier stage cancers, and lower in later stages. There is not just one type of prostate cancer surgery, so if you are considering it, you should know your options.

Traditional techniques for prostate surgery include transurethral, perineal and retropubic prostatectomy. In a transurethral prostatectomy, a cytoscope is inserted into the urethra to the prostate and the prostate tissue is clipped away. This is the least invasive traditional surgery, but it still carries the side effects associated with all major operations. In perineal and retropubic prostatectomy procedures, larger incisions are made through which the prostate and surrounding lymph nodes or other tissues can be removed. Common side effects of all of these traditional techniques include impotence (reported in ninety percent of patients) and incontinence (reported in fifteen percent of patients).

Newer surgical techniques aim to reduce such side effects. One promising surgery, nerve sparing radical retropubic prostatectomy, has been shown to lower the incidence of both impotence and incontinence. In nerve sparing radical retropubic prostatectomy, the bundles of nerves that run along both sides of the prostate gland are left in place if they show no signs of cancer. This increases potency to eighty-six percent and continence to between eighty-five and one-hundred percent.

Another traditional treatment for prostate cancer is radiation therapy. There are two forms of radiation therapy used in prostate cancer treatment - external beam radiation and brachytherapy. External beam radiation involves an x-ray like beam aimed at the prostate from outside the body. The goal is to kill the cancer cells and prostate tissue. Brachytherapy is essentially internal radiation, as radioactive seeds are implanted directly into the prostate and also act to kill the cancer cells and prostate tissue. The side effects of radiation therapy are similar to those of traditional prostate cancer surgery, though impotence can take up to a year to develop. At this time, newer methods to reduce those side effects are being researched, but there is no procedure in place.

Only you and your physician can make the ultimate decision about what is right for you given your history and the state of your prostate cancer. However, if you feel you aren't being given all of the options, don't ever hesitate to get a second opinion.

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