1st Mens Health

Prostate cancer treatments include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, palliative, curative therapy and so on.

Because each man is different, it is often difficult for doctors to decide what the best form of therapy to use is. On that note, we can discuss a few of the treatments to help the reader understand what each entails.

Curative treatment:
Curative treatment is a common strategy that many doctors will use to treat prostate cancer, especially if the cancer is confined to the gland, or the symptoms are troublesome and put the man at risk of death. Most times the cancer is rapidly growing. This type of therapy is also known as definitive. It can help men with small, growing cancer that spreads out slowly. The therapy can benefit men that have developed cancer outside of the prostate gland as well. The therapy has proven to prolong life, reduce or even eradicate critical signs that result from prostate cancer. This form of treatment can effect one’s quality of life, incontinence, and erectile permanently.

Palliative therapy:
This form of therapy focuses on treating the symptoms, rather than the disease. This form of therapy is recommended to men that have incurable prostrate cancer that is spreading rapidly. Using this therapy doctors attempt to slow or reverse the symptoms of the prostate cancer. This is only a temporary measure, as the symptoms will in time, worsen. Finally, it causes death. Doctors sometimes combine hormonal, radiation, surgery, and other treatments with palliative therapy.

Surgical therapy:
The doctor will surgically remove the prostatectomy or prostate. Surgery is often chosen if the cancer is limited to the prostate. Surgery is not effective with treating rapid growing cancer. This is because the cancer cells will spread during diagnosis. Usually the patient is given general anesthesia. Hospital stay is overnight. The surgeon will make a small, incision, yet only use a single procedure to complete the surgery. The side effects could lead to erectile dysfunction, which can become permanent. Urinary incontinence is another side effect.

This form of therapy has three forms, which include prostatectomy radical, nerve sparing radical, and laparoscopic radical. Bilateral orchiectomy, cryosurgery, and transurethral resection are other variants of these therapeutic measures. During radical prostatectomy the doctor will remove parts of the vas deferens, remove the seminal vesicles, and the prostate. According to medical experts, this surgical procedure is the most likely to eliminate prostate cancer.

The problems that arise from this form of surgery however causes severe incontinence, yet the percentage of men that endure permanent, temporary, etc vary.

Radiation therapy:
Radiation is a form of therapy that attempts to save healthy tissues and abolish cancer. If the cancer is limited to the prostate, doctors attempt to use this therapy to kill the tissue cells that cause cancer to spread. That is the dying cells. If cancer has invading tissues about the prostate, yet it has not spread to remote organs, this therapy is used also. The therapy is also used to reduce pain caused from prostate cancer spreading to the