What are my Treatment Options if my Prostate Disease Returns?
No one likes to have a returning disease or disorder and if prostrate cancer is recurrent it is understandable that a man would want to know what is options are. Basically radiation therapy, prostatectomy, hormone therapy, medications along with other therapies, and clinical trials are the treatment options available for recurrent prostate cancer patients.
Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation such as x-rays, gamma rays, neutrons, protons, and other sources to kill the cancer cells found in the prostrate or to shrink tumors located there. External-beam radiation therapy may be used or a radioactive material may be placed in the body near where the cancer cells are. A radioactive substance (radiolabeled monoclonal antibody) maybe used to travel the blood to tissues throughout the body.
After patients have been treated with radiation therapy they may receive prostatectomy, which is an operation to remove part or the entire prostate. A radical or total prostatectomy is when the entire prostate and some of the surrounding tissue is removed.
Hormone therapy is another viable treatment. Hormone therapy works by blocking or removing hormones to slow or stop the growth of cancers. Another way of blocking the body’s natural hormones is to use synthetic hormones. If necessary surgery may be used to remove a gland that is producing a particular hormone.
Sometimes therapy is used to lessen bone pain (palliative therapy). Pain medication may be given to help relieve pain symptoms.
Clinical trials of ultrasound, guided cryosurgery, chemotherapy or biological therapy may also be offered.
Recurrent prostate cancer may respond to chemotherapy when it has stopped responding to traditional treatment. Chemotherapy is given orally, or by a computerized pump, or it may also be given by injections at the doctor’s office. Chemotherapy can slow tumor growth when the cancer is in the advanced stage and it can also relieve pain.
A drug, Thalidomide has also been recommended for biochemical recurrent prostate cancer.
Hormone therapy is usually used when patients still have prostate cancer despite having had radiation therapy. Hormone therapy has the goal of removing male hormones that are necessary for prostate cancer growth. Typically recurrent prostate cancer can be controlled using hormone therapy for a period of years. Unfortunately most prostate cancers continue to grow despite hormone therapy.
Patients with recurrent prostate cancer who have bone complications are treated with bisphosphonate drugs, and radiation therapy.
There are many studies and clinical trials being conducted all the time to test new drugs and new treatment programs.
Your doctor may use different strategies to treat your recurring prostrate cancer including combination therapy, cryosurgery, and any new chemotherapy regimens that are of a systemic nature. Gene therapy is another option that may be added to the strategy. There are currently no gene therapies that have been approved for the treatment of prostate cancer but there are evaluations being conducted currently in prostate patients.
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