At any conference on prostate cancer, the emphasis is almost sure to be on something other than surgical removal of the prostate. Men do not relish the thought of undergoing that procedure. Physicians too appear to favor alternative procedures.
To fully understand why radiotherapy is a treatment encouraged by physicians, one must learn something about the term “PSA nadir” To fully understand the term “PSA nadir,” one must gather together the basic facts about prostate cancer. Those basic facts appear in the following paragraphs.
Approximately two-thirds of the cells in the prostate gland are prostate cells. Those cells produce seminal fluid. When mixed with sperm, that seminal fluid becomes semen. Men undoubtedly see seminal fluid as the primary product of the prostate cells. Yet that is not there only product.
The prostate cells also produce various proteins. One of those proteins is PSA. Even benign prostate cells produce a certain amount of PSA. In most cases of prostate cancer, the malignant cells produce appreciably more PSA, often ten fold more than the amount produced by the non-malignant cells.
A high PSA level can tell a physician to perform a biopsy of the prostate gland. That biopsy should either confirm or refute the existence of a prostate tumor. Of course, sometimes a benign tumor can produce added PSA. Sometimes too, a malignant tumor can fail to produce a noticeable amount of PSA.
That is why a man should get a regular digital rectal exam (DRE). That exam could tip-off a physician to the need for prostate cancer treatment. When combined with the PSA test, that exam could eventually lead to a discussion about whether or not radiotherapy was the patient’s treatment of choice.
If a patient does say that radiotherapy is his treatment of choice, then he spares himself more than the possible consequences of surgery. An added problem with surgery relates to something mentioned earlier. It relates to the PSA nadir.
The PSA nadir measures the level of the patient’s PSA following prostate treatment. If a surgical treatment has failed to remove every single one of the prostate cancer cells, then the remaining cell or cells could divide. The growth of any remaining cells would eventually cause a rise in the PSA. That would mean a rise in the PSA nadir.
The best way to avoid a rise in the PSA nadir is to kill all of the prostate cancer cells. Radiotherapy is a good way to work toward the eradication of all the prostate cancer cells. Radiotherapy can better guarantee a risk-free effort to rid the prostate gland of all the malignant cells.
Because it is effective and risk free, radiotherapy offers numerous advantages over traditional prostate surgery. Radiotherapy is the frequent choice of both men and physicians.