Nutrition And Dietary Supplements
Some studies have suggested that eating a healthy diet that is rich in vegetables and lower in animal fats might be helpful, but more research is needed to be sure. However, we do know that a healthy diet can have positive effects on your overall health, with benefits that extend beyond your risk of prostate or other cancers.
So far, no dietary supplements have been shown to clearly help lower the risk of prostate cancer progressing or coming back. In fact, some research has suggested that some supplements, such as selenium, might even be harmful. This doesnt mean that no supplements will help, but its important to know that none have been proven to do so.
Dietary supplements are not regulated like medicines in the United States they do not have to be proven effective before being sold, although there are limits on what theyre allowed to claim they can do. If you are thinking about taking any type of nutritional supplement, talk to your health care team. They can help you decide which ones you can use safely while avoiding those that could be harmful.
Keeping Up With Appointments And Screenings
Attending your doctors appointments after youve entered remission is very important. If you need to skip an appointment, you should make another appointment as soon as possible.
Use these appointments as a time to discuss any concerns you may have with your doctor. Your doctor can also conduct tests to check for the cancers return during these appointments.
Two tests to detect recurrent prostate cancer include a digital rectal exam and a PSA blood test. During a DRE, your doctor will insert a finger into your rectum. If your doctor detects something unusual, theyll likely ask for additional follow-up tests. These tests may include bone scans and imaging studies, such as an ultrasound or MRI.
Men often experience side effects from their prostate cancer treatments. Some of these side effects may be immediate and temporary. Others may take several weeks or months to show up and never fully disappear.
Common side effects from prostate cancer treatment include:
About Half Of Men Older Than 50 Have An Enlarged Prostate Here Are Some Of The Basic Facts You Need To Know About This Common Condition
As men age, many experience prostate gland enlargement. This condition is known as benign prostatic hyperplasia .
The prostate gland surrounds the urethra, the hollow tube that carries urine out of the body. When the prostate gets bigger, it can squeeze or partially block the urethra, which leads to problems urinating.
BPH is quite common in older men. In fact, the condition impacts about 50% of men between the ages of 51 and 60. For men 80 and older, the prevalence of BPH is approximately 90%, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
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Dry Orgasm And Infertility
Both the prostate and the glands responsible for semen production are removed during surgery, which is a common prostate cancer treatment. If you received this treatment, youd still be able to have an orgasm but youd no longer ejaculate.
This means that youll no longer be fertile. If you plan to have children in the future, you may consider banking your sperm before your surgery.
Side Effects From Radiation
Urinary symptoms from radiation treatment for prostate cancer are different from those caused by prostate surgery. “It’s more like a urinary tract infection-increased urgency and frequency, and men may some have bleeding or pain when they urinate,” Calvaresi said. These problems often go away once treatment is complete.
Radiation also may cause bowel changes, such as constipation, loose stools or both. These can be managed by over-the-counter medication. Men may also see some blood in their stool during treatment-if so, let your health care provider know about this.
Men undergoing radiation are likely to have ED, but not immediately. “It slowly sets in after radiation treatment,” Calvaresi said. Treatments for radiation-related ED are the same as ED caused by prostate cancer surgery.
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Watchful Waiting Or Active Surveillance/active Monitoring
Asymptomatic patients of advanced age or with concomitant illness may warrantconsideration of careful observation without immediate active treatment. Watch and wait, observation, expectant management, and active surveillance/active monitoring are terms indicating a strategy that does not employ immediate therapy with curative intent.
Watchful waiting and active surveillance/active monitoring are the most commonly used terms, and the literature does not always clearly distinguish them, making the interpretation of results difficult. The general concept of watchful waiting is patient follow-up with the application of palliative care as needed to alleviate symptoms of tumor progression. There is no planned attempt at curative therapy at any point in follow-up. For example, transurethral resection of the prostate or hormonal therapy may be used to alleviate tumor-related urethral obstruction should there be local tumor growth hormonal therapy or bone radiation might be used to alleviate pain from metastases. Radical prostatectomy has been compared with watchful waiting or active surveillance/active monitoring in men with early-stage disease .
- Regular patient visits.
- Transrectal ultrasound .
- Transrectal needle biopsies .
Patient selection, testing intervals, and specific tests, as well as criteria for intervention, are arbitrary and not established in controlled trials.
Recurrence Of Prostate Cancer Life Expectancy
According to the table above, when the prostate cancer recurrence rate is low, then life expectancy generally is 10 years or higher. When calculating life expectancy to a prostate expectancy too.
Meanwhile, if the recurrence rate is high, then most probably the tumor will involve the adjacent areas. And often the recurrence seems to occur after 6-8 years of radical prostatectomy.
In cases of metastastasis, it is difficult to assess the period of relapse. This is actually considered as very high risk zone.
Sometimes, the actual cause is not the prostate cancer, but some other associated problems. That’s why, it is highly recommended regular annual check-ups not only to tackle prostate cancer, but also a scheduled check-up to detect its recurrence and related problems too.
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General Prostate Cancer Survival Rate
According to the American Cancer Society:
- The relative 5-year survival rate is nearly 100%
- The relative 10-year survival rate is 98%
- The 15-year relative survival rate is 91%
Note: Relative survival rate means the percentage of patients who live amount of years after their initial diagnosis.
Keep in mind, however, that because the compiled list figures are of cancers diagnosed up to 15 years ago, you may have an even greater chance of survival than these indicate due to advances in prostate cancer treatment technology
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Life After Prostate Cancer Treatment
Adjusting to life after prostate cancer treatment can take time. For some men, the emotional impact of what they have been through may not hit them until they have finished treatment. For others, working through the physical side effects is their immediate focus.
Although prostate cancer treatment can be lifesaving, it can also take a toll on the body. This can result in a disruption to normal urinary, bowel and sexual function.
Whether you have surgery, radiation or hormone therapy, you are likely to have side effects.
“It’s important to talk with your health care provider about these side effects before you start treatment, so you can learn about the range of options to treat them,” says Anne Calvaresi, DNP, CRNP, RNFA, Urology Nurse Practitioner at the Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
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Standard Treatment Options For Stage Ii Prostate Cancer
Standard treatment options for patients with stage II prostate cancer include the following:
Watchful waiting or active surveillance/active monitoring
Asymptomatic patients of advanced age or with concomitant illness may warrant consideration of careful observation without immediate active treatment. Watch and wait, observation, expectant management, and active surveillance/active monitoring are terms indicating a strategy that does not employ immediate therapy with curative intent. .
Evidence :
Radical prostatectomy
Radical prostatectomy, usually with pelvic lymphadenectomy is the most commonly applied therapy with curative intent. Radical prostatectomy may be difficult after a transurethral resection of the prostate .
Evidence :
Evidence :
Evidence :
Advancing Prostate Cancer Care
At Memorial Sloan Kettering, we tailor multimodal approaches to the individual features of each patients cancer. Radical prostatectomy is a complex procedure that requires a high level of technical precision. We provide state-of-the-art surgical techniques, including minimally invasive robotic and nerve-sparing surgery. Over the past few decades, we have dramatically reduced surgical complications by incorporating imaging test results in surgical plans to ensure the avoidance of other structures and the minimization of the risk of incontinence and erectile dysfunction. Our multidisciplinary prostate cancer team includes radiation oncologists who provide the latest radiotherapy approaches, including image-guided and intensity-modulated radiation therapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy.
The field of prostate cancer care is evolving rapidly. We continue to explore new ways to improve outcomes and safety and effectiveness through clinical trials, in which we are testing new drugs and drug combinations, surgery and radiation therapy techniques, diagnostic approaches, and strategies for improving quality of life for men undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.
Disclosure: Peter Scardino sits on a clinical advisory board for OPKO Health outside the submitted study he also holds a patent issued by OPKO.
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Keeping Health Insurance And Copies Of Your Medical Records
Even after treatment, its very important to keep health insurance. Tests and doctor visits cost a lot, and although no one wants to think of their cancer coming back, this could happen.
At some point after your cancer treatment, you might find yourself seeing a new doctor who doesnt know your medical history. Its important to keep copies of your medical records to give your new doctor the details of your diagnosis and treatment.
Prostate Cancer Treatment Health Professional Version
On This Page
The median age at diagnosis of carcinoma of the prostate is 66 years. Prostate cancer may be cured when localized, and it frequently responds to treatment when widespread. The rate of tumor growth varies from very slow to moderately rapid, and some patients may have prolonged survival even after the cancer has metastasized to distant sites, such as bone. The 5-year relative survival rate for men diagnosed in the United States from 2010 to 2016 with local or regional disease was greater than 99%, and the rate for distant disease was 30% a 98% survival rate was observed for all stages combined. The approach to treatment is influenced by age and coexisting medical problems. Side effects of various forms of treatment should be considered in selecting appropriate management.
Many patientsespecially those with localized tumorsmay die of other illnesses without ever having suffered disability from the cancer, even if managed conservatively without an attempt at curative therapy. In part, these favorable outcomes are likely the result of widespread screening with the prostate-specific antigen test, which can identify patients with asymptomatic tumors that have little or no lethal potential. There is a large number of these clinically indolent tumors, estimated from autopsy series of men dying of causes unrelated to prostate cancer to range from 30% to 70% of men older than 60 years.
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Life Expectancy And Localized Prostate Cancer
So how do these treatments affect life expectancy? In one study, researchers in Switzerland examined the treatment and outcomes of 844 men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer. They compared men who had been treated with prostatectomy, radiotherapy and watchful waiting and found that at five years from diagnosis, the type of treatment made little difference to survival. When the researchers went to 10 years from diagnosis, they did find a difference in survival based on treatment, but it was fairly small.
After 10 years, 83 percent of the men who had gotten a prostatectomy were still living, compared to 75 percent who had undergone radiotherapy and 72 percent who took a watchful waiting approach.
Survival Rates For Bladder Cancer
Survival rates can give you an idea of what percentage of people with the same type and stage of cancer are still alive a certain amount of time after they were diagnosed. They cant tell you how long you will live, but they may help give you a better understanding of how likely it is that your treatment will be successful.
Keep in mind that survival rates are estimates and are often based on previous outcomes of large numbers of people who had a specific cancer, but they cant predict what will happen in any particular persons case. These statistics can be confusing and may lead you to have more questions. Talk with your doctor about how these numbers may apply to you, as he or she is familiar with your situation.
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Watchful Waiting And Active Surveillance
Watchful waiting is an adequate approach in patients who are at low risk of death from prostate cancer because of their limited life expectancy due to severe comorbidities., Watchful waiting resulted in similar overall survival when compared with radical prostatectomy, but disease-specific survival was better in patients who had undergone surgery. For some patients it turns out to be hard to persist on a watchful waiting policy, and many men drop out and seek active treatment within several years, mostly when PSA elevation is noted.
Active surveillance is a novel and fascinating approach to distinguish between patients who are at higher risk and need active therapy and patients who are at low risk for disease progression., This approach avoids the risks of therapy while allowing early detection of those patients who are prone to progress. In these high-risk individuals, delayed active treatment is offered. Periodic monitoring of the PSA serum level, digital rectal exam, and repeated prostate biopsies are performed in patients who are on active surveillance, and active therapy is started when predefined threshold values are reached. This concept makes it possible to offer curative treatment to individuals who are at high risk for disease progression as indicated by active surveillance parameters.
Radiation Therapy And Radiopharmaceutical Therapy
External-beam radiation therapy
Candidates for definitive radiation therapy must have a confirmed pathologic diagnosis of cancer that is clinically confined to the prostate and/or surrounding tissues . Staging laparotomy and lymph node dissection are not required.
Radiation therapy may be a good option for patients who are considered poor medical candidates for radical prostatectomy. These patients can be treated with an acceptably low complication rate if care is given to the delivery technique.
Long-term results with radiation therapy are dependent on stage and are associated with dosimetry of the radiation.
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Brachytherapy
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What Is The Life Expectancy After Prostate Removal
. Besides, can you live a long life after prostate cancer?
You can live a long time with prostate cancer, maybe even decades. If you catch and treat it early, you might even be able to cure it.
Secondly, can you still get hard if you have your prostate removed? When you have a radical prostatectomy, you have surgery to remove your prostate gland. These nerves, blood vessels, and muscles may be weakened when you have surgery for your prostate cancer. However, you may find that you cannot have an erection even a year or more after surgery.
Moreover, what happens if you have your prostate removed?
Side effects of prostate surgery. The major possible side effects of radical prostatectomy are urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction . Men with stress incontinence might leak urine when they cough, laugh, sneeze, or exercise.
Are you ever cured of prostate cancer?
The short answer is yes, prostate cancer can be cured, when detected and treated early. The vast majority of prostate cancer cases are discovered in the early stages, making the tumors more likely to respond to treatment. Treatment doesn’t always have to mean surgery or chemotherapy, either.
As Screening Falls Will More Men Die From Prostate Cancer
In active monitoring, men with localized prostate cancer do not get surgery or radiation right after theyre diagnosed. Instead, they have regular biopsies, blood tests, and MRIs to see if their cancer is progressing. If it is, they can receive treatment.
Although some oncologists advise men with early, low-grade prostate cancer to choose active surveillance and professional groups such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology recommend it many patients recoil at what sounds like lets just wait for your cancer to become really advanced. A decade ago fewer than 10 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer chose monitoring, UCLA researchers found. But that is changing. Now at least half of men do.
That made sense to Garth Callaghan, author of the best-selling Napkin Notes, a book of missives he tucked into his daughters lunch box. Diagnosed with early prostate cancer in 2012, he said, none of the choices seemed particularly attractive to a 43-year-old man who dreaded the possibility of side effects of surgery or radiation, including incontinence and impotence. I was completely torn. My previous experience was, just get it out of my body. But after his doctor explained that prostate cancer is grossly overtreated in the United States, I did a complete 180 and chose active monitoring.
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