Whats Prostate Cancer Treatments That Cure

There are so many prostate cancer treatments that a patient might have trouble keeping abreast of them all. The thing about these treatments for the disease is that they all have various limits to which they can provide remedy for the disease, and they all have certain side effects that some patients may not be comfortable with.

The most important thing to note in deciding on treatment however is that the early stages of prostate cancer can be cured, but later (advanced) stage disease cannot. There are other factors too that have to be put into consideration, such as the sentiment of the patient, his state of health, and such the like, but disease stage is most important.

What most people would argue to be the best treatments for prostate cancer are prostatectomy and radiation therapy. This is because these two are often carried out in early stage disease with the intention of curing the condition.

Prostatectomy is a surgery during which the prostate gland is removed in order to remove the tumor growing within it. It is a straightforward process that may be varied by incision or procedure, but one with such side effects as impotence and incontinence.

Radiation therapy may be given at any stage of the disease, but for early stage prostate cancer it is often internal (brachytherapy), or sometime combined with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT). Ionizing radiation from a linear accelerator or from surgically implanted radioactive seeds attacks the DNA in cells in the body and makes them more predisposed to apoptosis (programmed cell death).

The problem with radiation is exposure, because other (normal) cells in body also suffer from the damage done by the rays. However they can recuperate while the cancerous cells cannot; but the patient is going to have to deal with radiation proctitis for a while before the symptoms fade.

The side effects of radiation treatment for prostate cancer are diarrhea and mild rectal bleeding from the proctitis, as well as incontinence and impotence.

The limitations of radiation therapy and radical prostatectomy have caused for other procedures to the sought after that may provide cure for prostate cancer with fewer complications. Nerve sparring attempts to reduce the risk of impotence, and cryosurgery (which is indeed better) tries to reduce other complications like scars and blood loss, while also extending the time during which the patient might not suffer a relapse of the disease.

Using similar concepts to radiation treatment, proton therapy, high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), and intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) all work by making it easier to specifically target tumors without doing damage to other parts of the body, this limiting side effects.

Prostate Cancer Freezing Cryotherapy – Treatment by Extreme Cold

It goes by quite a number of names – cryotherapy, cryosurgery, or cryoablation – but really there is only one thing that they all mean: treating prostate cancer by freezing.

Prostate cancer is a condition in which the normal cells in the prostate gland start to mutate suddenly and them multiply rapidly, affecting other cells, growing larger, and generally being a nuisance… a nuisance that kills if rapidly and properly taken care of. Cryotherapy is a surgical procedure in which extreme cold is applied to the prostate gland in order to freeze up the cells in it and cause them to die in the process.

The freezing temperature is obtained from a highly purified argon gas source and conducted into the prostate through two small metallic rods that have been inserted with the aid of ultrasound imaging into the organ. Because of the location of the prostate, the prostatic urethra is at risk as well from freezing over (the tube that links/leads from the bladder to the penis). In order to save it, a catheter of warm fluid is placed gingerly around it.

The temperature is dropped to the regions of – 186^oC, which is the same as – 302^oF. The water in the cells in the prostate freeze up at this point, and the patient is thereby cured of prostate cancer when the cells die off. It is unfortunate to think that the entire prostate would be destroyed in this way, but it is pleasant to consider that the patient now has a better ten year guarantee that the disease will not relapse than any other prostate cancer treatment can offer.

Cryosurgery generally causes fewer problems with urinary control than most other treatments that there are, but it has the sorry disappointment of resulting in impotence up to ninety percent of the time. Not pleasant at all, that. However, if the therapy is employed in the hands of an experienced cryosurgeon and in capacity as the initial treatment for prostate cancer, as mentioned earlier it has a 10 year biochemical disease free rate that is totally superior to all other treatments for prostate cancer that there are – even radical prostatectomy and any form of radiation don’t come close.

To date, cryosurgery has been demonstrated to be a better-quality procedure for the treatment of prostate cancer that recurs after a radiation therapy, than radical prostatectomy could ever be. It allows for the patient to suffer less blood loss, recover faster, and be back at work in record time. Sometimes the patient may require a night’s stay in the hospital, but only just so. The fewer incisions also makes for an aesthetically superior surgical process.

Prostate Cancer External Beam Radiation Treatment (EBRT)

External beam radiation therapy is a form of radiotherapy which uses ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells. In the treatment of prostate cancer radiotherapy can be used to treat all stages of prostate cancer, can be focused as a salvage therapy for when surgery fails to cure the patient. The ionizing radiation upon being absorbed in tissue does damage to the DNA in cancer cells, increasing their probability of apoptosis. Although normal cells also are harmed in the process, they are able to repair the radiation damage, but not the cancer cells.

External beam radiation therapy (EBRT) makes use of a linear accelerator to produce the said high-energy x-rays and direct them in a beam towards the prostate, or the region in question where the tumor is meant to be located. EBRT generally has to be given to the patient over a period of several weeks, with the patient observing daily visits to a radiation therapy center.

There are side effects to this form of treatment though. Because it is difficult to conform the incident rays (or beam) or ionizing radiation to the shape of the contours of the tumor, more and more normal cells are affected by the treatment, and during the time span it takes them to heal, things could be really uncomfortable.

These side effects of EBRT typically occur a few weeks into treatment, causing diarrhea and mild rectal bleeding as a result of radiation proctitis. The side effects may also include potential urinary incontinence and impotence. The good news is merely that they symptoms tend to improve over time as the overall effect of the radiation exposure wares off of the body.

To aid in the spate of prostate cancer external beam radiation treatment, certain new types of radiation therapy are being realized. For instance, one new procedure called IMRT – intensity modulated radiation therapy – improves on the ability to conform radiation beams to the shape of the tumors, which is priceless for the patient and doctor alike. There are fewer side effects than traditional treatment, while the procedure also allows higher doses to be given to the prostate and seminal vesicles with less damage to the bladder and rectum.

There are other treatments that are springing up even at this time that use the same concept as EBRT. One such is proton therapy, also now preferred to EBRT because it can focus better on cancerous cells with fewer side effects and kill them; another is High Intensity Focused Ultrasound – HIFU, which uses sound waves instead to heat the cancerous tissue to death. External beam radiotherapy was the first, and remains still largely in use.

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