While a growing number of men diagnosed with early-stage, slow-growing prostate cancer opt for no immediate treatment beyond active surveillance, many men diagnosed with the cancer — especially those under age 60 who are in good health with a long life expectancy — choose to have their cancer treated without delay with either surgery or radiation.
If you’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer and determine that immediate treatment is best for you, your next step is deciding which form of treatment to have. “Treatment has evolved over the past 20 years to be more effective with fewer side effects,” says Philip Kantoff, a medical oncologist and prostate cancer researcher who serves as chair of the department of medicine at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
If the cancer has not spread beyond the prostate gland, standard prostate cancer treatments include:
— Surgery to remove the prostate gland (called radical prostatectomy)
— Radiation therapy — sometimes combined with androgen deprivation therapy, which shuts off male hormones that fuel cancer cells
Potential Side Effects of Prostate Cancer Treatment
Both surgery and radiation prostate cancer treatments are associated with a variety of potential complications and side effects. The most common complications of surgery include leakage of urine or stool, impotence and shortening of the penis, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Surgeons now routinely perform nerve-sparing surgery that can save the nerves that control erection, which has reduced impotence rates. But men with very large tumors or tumors very close to the nerves may not be able to have this surgery.
Radiation treatment for prostate cancer can also cause impotence and urinary incontinence, but whether these occur at equal or lesser frequency than for surgery remains unknown.
Rates of these side effects can vary based on the expertise of the surgeon or radiologist. “Treatment specialists should be able to tell you their rate of side effects in their particular patient population,” says Ballentine Carter, a professor of urology and oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.
If a man has good erectile function and is sexually active before treatment, Carter says, he should expect to enjoy those functions after surgery or radiation with about 80 percent confidence. Continence should be 95 percent or higher in those without any history of bladder control problems. Side effects are more pronounced in those who have problems before treatment.
See: [10 Things Younger Men Should Know About Prostate Cancer.]
What Is the Best Prostate Cancer Treatment: Surgery or Radiation?
Determining whether to opt for surgery or radiation is largely a matter of a man’s personal preference. Some may prefer the one-shot removal of their tumor offered by surgery, while others feel more comfortable with weeks of radiation treatments. Those with an early cancer that is growing rapidly might do best with multiple treatment regimens such as surgery followed by radiation along with androgen deprivation therapy. “It’s hard to make a strong argument that one is ‘better’ than the other,” Kantoff says, because there aren’t clinical trials comparing the two approaches to see which is more effective at preventing the spread of prostate cancer.
It’s important to talk to professionals within different specialties — ideally a urologist, radiation oncologist and medical oncologist — to get a balanced view of your prostate cancer treatment options, Kantoff adds.
See: [10 Innovations in Cancer Therapy. ]
Different Types of Prostate Cancer Surgery
If you opt for surgery, you can typically choose between an open incision radical prostatectomy and a newer robot-assisted procedure, performed through five or six tiny “keyhole” cuts in the lower abdomen. Surgeons manipulate robot-like fingers through these small incisions to remove the prostate and surrounding lymph nodes without having to cut through as much healthy tissue. The main advantage of this robot-assisted prostatectomy: generally a shorter hospital stay and faster recuperation time.
Some surgeons could also perform a laparoscopic prostatectomy, which involves making mid-size cuts — about a half inch each — in the abdomen in which tiny cameras and surgical tools are inserted to remove cancerous tissue.
Which surgery a patient is offered often depends on what surgeons feel comfortable performing based on their own experience. “The likelihood of curing your cancer and having as few post-surgery complications as possible depends on the skill and experience of the surgeon, not whether the surgery is done open or with a robot,” Carter says.
Radiation Treatment Options?
External beam radiation. This delivers high-energy X-rays to the prostate gland from outside the body. It typically consists of five treatments a week over an eight-week period. Each treatment takes 15 to 25 minutes. Anesthesia isn’t required, but the treatment can cause redness, fatigue and loss of appetite in addition to incontinence and sexual dysfunction.
Radioactive seed implants. This procedure, called brachytherapy, involves making an incision under general anesthesia to implant pellets into the prostate gland that release low doses of radiation slowly over a period of months. About 40 to 150 rice-size seeds are implanted, and they lose their radioactivity over the course of a year. Implants pose less risk of damaging the rectum but may have a higher risk of causing urinary incontinence than external beam radiation. Sexual problems are also a possibility.
See: [10 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Prostate Cancer.]
Androgen deprivation therapy may also be recommended along with radiation treatment if a patient doesn’t respond well enough to the radiation treatment alone. Doctors can gauge how well patients are responding to radiation by measuring a blood biomarker called prostate specific antigen or PSA. Men who undergo hormone therapy typically experience hot flashes, low libido, weak bones and possibly diarrhea and nausea.
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Prostate Cancer Treatment: Surgery or Radiation? originally appeared on usnews.com
