Guide To Managing Side Effects Of Chemotherapy
Follow these simple rules to manage your side effects:
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Pay attention. Be aware of all expected and unexpected reactions to the drugs.
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Be proactive. Make a list of your medications. Talk with your health care providers about what signs to look for and when to call them.
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Relax and get well. Chemotherapy drugs are powerful and can take a toll on the body. Focus on getting well by finding ways to alleviate stress. These may include listening to music, doing yoga or stretching exercises, taking walks or watching TV.
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Keep a journal. Write down any physical and emotional changes you experience while taking the medications. A written list will make it easier for you to remember your questions when you go to your appointments. It will also make it easier for you to work with your health care team to manage your side effects.
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Consult your doctor. Talk with your health care providers about any side effects you experience. There are several drugs designed to help ward off or treat different side effects.
What Have I Learned By Reading This
You learned about:
- Ways to get chemotherapy, and
- What to expect when you have chemotherapy.
If you have any questions, please talk to your doctor or health care team. It is important that you understand what is going on with your chemotherapy treatment. This knowledge will help you take better care of yourself and feel more in control so that you can get the most from your treatment.
Hormone Therapy For Prostate Cancer
Also known as androgen suppression therapy, the purpose of hormone therapy is to mitigate the influence of any prostate cancer. What happens is that prostate cancer cells are feeding on male hormones in order to grow. Using hormone therapy, the body puts a stop on supplying cancer with what it requires in order to grow.
Nonetheless, hormone therapy is not a cure for prostate cancer. Doctors can recommend this procedure when the cancer has spread too far or before chemotherapy in order to shrink the tumor and maximize the efficiency of the treatment.
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What Is Intermittent Adt
Researchers have investigated whether a technique called intermittent androgen deprivation can delay the development of hormone resistance. With intermittent androgen deprivation, hormone therapy is given in cycles with breaks between drug administrations, rather than continuously. An additional potential benefit of this approach is that the temporary break from the side effects of hormone therapy may improve a mans quality of life.
Randomized clinical trials have shown similar overall survival with continuous ADT or intermittent ADT among men with metastatic or recurrent prostate cancer, with a reduction in some side effects for intermittent ADT .
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Antiandrogens For Prostate Cancer
These prostate cancer drugs work by blocking the effect of testosterone in the body. Antiandrogens are sometimes used in addition to orchiectomy or LHRH analogs.This is due to the fact that the other forms of hormone therapy remove about 90% of testosterone circulating in the body. Antiandrogens may help block the remaining 10% of circulating testosterone. Using antiandrogens with another form of hormone therapy is called combined androgen blockade , or total androgen ablation. Antiandrogens may also be used to combat the symptoms of flare . Some doctors prescribe antiandrogens alone rather than with orchiectomy or LHRH analogs.
Available antiandrogens include abiraterone acetate , apalutamide , biclutamide , darolutamide , enzalutamide , flutamide , and nilutamide . Patients take antiandrogens as pills. Diarrhea is the primary side effect when antiandrogens are used as part of combination therapy. Less likely side effects include nausea, liver problems, and fatigue. When antiandrogens are used alone they may cause a reduction in sex drive and impotence.
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Good Prostate Cancer Care
Your MDT will be able to recommend what they feel are the best treatment options, but ultimately the decision is yours.
You should be able to talk with a named specialist nurse about treatment options and possible side effects to help you make a decision.
You should also be told about any clinical trials you may be eligible for.
If you have side effects from treatment, you should be referred to specialist services to help stop or ease these side effects.
When Is Chemotherapy Used To Treat Prostate Cancer
Chemotherapy is not commonly used for early-stage prostate cancer. However, chemotherapy may be recommended for later-stage cancer that has spread outside the prostate and is not responding well to hormone therapy. Chemo might also be considered along with hormone therapy or following surgery.
At Moffitt Cancer Center, we take a comprehensive approach to cancer care. In addition to our world-class clinical therapies and individualized treatment plans, we also help our patients with side effect management. To learn more about chemotherapy for prostate cancer, call or complete a new patient registration form online. Referrals are not required.
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After Prostate Cancer Has Been Diagnosed Tests Are Done To Find Out If Cancer Cells Have Spread Within The Prostate Or To Other Parts Of The Body
The process used to find out if cancer has spread within theprostate or to other parts of the body is called staging. The information gathered from the staging process determines the stage of the disease. It is important to know the stage in order to plan treatment. The results of the tests used to diagnoseprostate cancer are often also used to stage the disease. In prostate cancer, staging tests may not be done unless the patient has symptoms or signs that the cancer has spread, such as bone pain, a high PSA level, or a high Gleason score.
The following tests and procedures also may be used in the staging process:
Are There Side Effects With Chemotherapy
Yes, there can be side effects or unwanted changes in your body when you have chemotherapy. Side effects are different from person to person, and may be different from one treatment to the next. Some people have no or very mild side effects. The good news is that there are ways to deal with most of the side effects. The strong anticancer medicines used in chemotherapy are made to kill cells in your body that grow and divide very quickly. This is why you may have side effects with chemotherapy. Along with your prostate cancer cells, chemotherapy also kills healthy cells in your body that grow and divide very quickly. Some kinds of these healthy cells that may be affected by your chemotherapy treatment include: cells that make your hair grow, cells that make new blood cells, and cells that cover the inside of your mouth, stomach, and intestines. Most of the side effects slowly go away after you finish your chemotherapy. There are ways to make the side effects easier to deal with while you are having chemotherapy.
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Recurrence After Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays, such as x-rays, to kill cancer cells in your prostate. While the high-energy rays are focused on your cancer cells, they may not have killed all of the cancer cells in your prostate gland. If all of the prostate cancer cells are not killed, they can move outside your prostate gland and start growing nearby or in other parts of your body.
Eight Types Of Standard Treatment Are Used:
Watchful waiting or active surveillance
Watchful waiting and active surveillance are treatments used for older men who do not have signs or symptoms or have other medical conditions and for men whose prostate cancer is found during a screening test.
Watchful waiting is closely monitoring a patients condition without giving any treatment until signs or symptoms appear or change. Treatment is given to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life.
Active surveillance is closely following a patient’s condition without giving any treatment unless there are changes in test results. It is used to find early signs that the condition is getting worse. In active surveillance, patients are given certain exams and tests, including digital rectal exam, PSA test, transrectal ultrasound, and transrectal needle biopsy, to check if the cancer is growing. When the cancer begins to grow, treatment is given to cure the cancer.
Other terms that are used to describe not giving treatment to cure prostate cancer right after diagnosis are observation, watch and wait, and expectant management.
Surgery
Patients in good health whose tumor is in the prostategland only may be treated with surgery to remove the tumor. The following types of surgery are used:
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Before You Start Chemotherapy
You need to have blood tests to make sure its safe to start treatment. You usually have these the day before or on the day you start treatment. You have blood tests before each round or cycle of treatment.
Your doctors and pharmacists work out your chemotherapy dose based on your blood cell levels, and your weight, height and general health.
Prostate Cancer Survival Rates
Answering the question of how curable is prostate cancer? first requires understanding what doctors mean when they refer to curability. Regardless of the type of cancer, doctors consider cancer cured when a patient remains cancer-free for a specified period after treatment. The higher the number of patients who stay cancer-free for five years or longer, the higher the curability of that particular disease.
Prostate cancer, therefore, has one of the highest curability rates of all types of cancer, thanks in large part to early detection standards and advances in treatment, such as the stereotactic body radiation therapy offered by Pasadena CyberKnife. When the cancer is detected in the early local or regional stages that is, before the cancer has spread or when it has only spread to limited areas in the pelvic regions the five-year survival rate is nearly 100 percent.
Survival rates decline significantly when cancer is detected at later stages however, the good news is that only about five percent of men are diagnosed after the cancer has become widespread throughout the body. In short, more than 90 percent of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer live for five years or longer after treatment, making it one of the most curable forms of cancer.
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Chemotherapy For Prostate Cancer As A Treatment Option
Chemotherapy, while a common treatment for many other types of cancers, is generally used in more advanced cases of prostate cancer. But chemotherapy is usually the first that springs to mind when people think of cancer treatment options.
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs that work to kill cancer cells. However, for prostate cancer treatment, chemotherapy is generally used to help slow down the disease rather than eradicate it. Another treatment used alongside chemotherapy is immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is where cells are taken out of your body, sensitized to cancer cells also from within your body, and re-introduced into your body to fight the cancer cells. For more on these treatments, watch Dr. Richard Bevan-Thomas in the video below:
Richard Bevan-Thomas MD: When a man thinks of prostate cancer or cancer in general, the first thing routinely that comes to mind is thinking about chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is where we give drugs that actually cause the death of cancer cells. In prostate cancer, chemotherapy is used in the later stages of the disease, so when we talk to men about prostate cancer, chemotherapy is not one of the first thing that comes up unless we start seeing a more advanced disease.
How You Might Feel If Your Prostate Cancer Returns
It is very hard to hear that you have prostate cancer again when you have already had treatment. The return of your prostate cancer may be something that you and those close to you have worried about since you were first diagnosed. You may feel that you have been through enough and that it is unfair that your prostate cancer has come back. For some people this can make having prostate cancer again harder than it was the first time. However, it is important for you to remember that there are treatments you can get that can help you. Your doctor and your health care team are there to help you choose what will be best for you. They will also help you deal with the challenge of having prostate cancer, again.
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A Biopsy Is Done To Diagnose Prostate Cancer And Find Out The Grade Of The Cancer
A transrectal biopsy is used to diagnose prostate cancer. A transrectal biopsy is the removal of tissue from the prostate by inserting a thin needle through the rectum and into the prostate. This procedure may be done using transrectal ultrasound or transrectal MRI to help guide where samples of tissue are taken from. A pathologist views the tissue under a microscope to look for cancer cells.
Sometimes a biopsy is done using a sample of tissue that was removed during a transurethral resection of the prostate to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia.
If cancer is found, the pathologist will give the cancer a grade. The grade of the cancer describes how abnormal the cancer cells look under a microscope and how quickly the cancer is likely to grow and spread. The grade of the cancer is called the Gleason score.
To give the cancer a grade, the pathologist checks the prostate tissue samples to see how much the tumor tissue is like the normal prostate tissue and to find the two main cell patterns. The primary pattern describes the most common tissue pattern, and the secondary pattern describes the next most common pattern. Each pattern is given a grade from 3 to 5, with grade 3 looking the most like normal prostate tissue and grade 5 looking the most abnormal. The two grades are then added to get a Gleason score.
When Is Chemotherapy Given
Chemotherapy may be ordered for advanced prostate cancer that has not responded to hormone treatment. It is usually given for metastatic disease . Metastatic disease may be present at diagnosis or, in some cases, the cancer can return in a distant location months or years after initial treatment.
Chemotherapy is given to cause the cancer to shrink and, hopefully, to disappear. Even if the cancer does not disappear, symptoms may be relieved.
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Can Prostate Cancer Be Completely Cured
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men. The average age of diagnosis is 66 year olds, although it may affect younger men as well. By age 80, more than half of all men have some cancerous growth in their prostate.
Due to routine screening of prostate-specific antigen levels in the United States, nearly 90% of prostate cancers get detected in early stages. In most cases, the cancer is confined only to the prostate and does not spread to other organs. With the widespread use of screening tests in the United States, early diagnosis of prostate cancer has become much easier.
When found early, there are several treatment options available and prostate cancer has a high chance of getting cured. Moreover, prostate cancer is a slow-growing cancer that takes many years to become big enough to cause symptoms. It also takes quite long to spread to other organs. This gives sufficient time for the doctors to treat it.
Oncologists recommend patients to not rush and take some time to understand the various treatment options available after consulting with more than one doctor. Patients can discuss various modes of treatment with the doctor and select the most appropriate option for their prostate cancer.
The 5-year survival rate for most men with local or regional prostate cancer is nearly 100%. There are more than three million survivors of prostate cancer in the United States today.
Additional Treatment After Surgery
Additional treatment can come with one of two approaches: treatment given as adjuvant therapy , or as salvage therapy . In the modern era, most additional treatment is given as salvage therapy because firstly this spares unnecessary treatment for men who would never experience recurrence, and secondly because the success rates of the two approaches appear to be the same.
Regardless of whether an adjuvant or salvage therapy approach is taken, the main treatment options following biochemical recurrence are:
- Radiotherapy this is the commonest approach. Because scans dont show metastatic deposits until the PSA is more than 0.5 ng/ml and because radiotherapy is more effective when given before this level is reached, the radiotherapy energy is delivered to the prostate bed. This is because we know that this is the commonest site of recurrence in most men, and that 80% of men treated in this way will be cured.
- Active surveillance this is appropriate for a very slowly-rising PSA in an elderly patient who has no symptoms.
- Hormonal therapy in many ways this is the least appealing option as it causes symptoms but does not cure anyone, although it does control the recurrence and lower the PSA.
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Immunotherapy For Prostate Cancer
Immunotherapy is a cure for prostate cancer in the shape of a vaccine. This treatment relies on training the patients white cells into recognizing and fighting prostate cancer cells.
On the other hand, this care plan is not an ideal fit for any stage of prostate cancer. On the contrary, immunotherapy usually works by increasing the survival span in patients with advanced cases where the symptoms are sparse or none at all.