Who Is At Risk For Advanced Prostate Cancer
The exact cause of prostate cancer isnt clear. Your risk of developing this particular cancer increases after you reach age 50.
Certain groups are more likely to develop aggressive forms of prostate cancer, including African-American men and men who carry certain inherited genetic mutations such as BRCA1, BRCA2, and HOXB13.
Most men with prostate cancer dont always have a family history of the disease. But having a father or brother with prostate cancer more than
You probably wont need all of these tests. Your doctor will choose the tests based on your symptoms and physical exam.
If any of the images reveal abnormalities, it doesnt necessarily mean that you have cancer. Additional testing may be necessary. If they find a mass, your doctor will probably order a biopsy.
For a biopsy, your doctor will use a needle to remove samples from the suspicious area. A pathologist will then analyze the removed cells under a microscope to see if theyre cancerous. The pathologist can also determine if you have an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
What Is My Outlook
If youre diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, you may want to know how well your treatment is likely to control your cancer and for how long it will control it. This is sometimes called your outlook or prognosis. But not all men will want to know this.
While it isnt possible to cure advanced prostate cancer, treatments can help keep it under control, often for several years. Treatments will also help manage any symptoms, such as pain.
No one can tell you exactly what your outlook will be, as it will depend on many things such as where the cancer has spread to, how quickly it has spread, and how well you respond to treatment. Some men may not respond well to one treatment, but may respond better to another. And when your first treatment stops working, there are other treatments available to help keep the cancer under control for longer. Speak to your doctor about your own situation and any questions or concerns you have.
Is Stage 4 Breast Cancer Curable
At the same time, its important to understand that stage 4 breast cancer isnt curable. It can be helpful to look at current statistics and consider the many variables that affect life expectancy. While its important not to raise false hope, it may help to know the reality that there are some long-term survivors.
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What Happens If My Cancer Starts To Grow Again
Your first treatment may help keep your cancer under control. But over time, the cancer may change and it may start to grow again.
You will usually stay on your first type of hormone therapy, even if its not working so well. This is because it will still help to keep the amount of testosterone in your body low. But there are other treatments that you can have alongside your usual treatment, to help control the cancer and manage any symptoms. Other treatments include:
Which treatments are suitable for me?
Which treatments are suitable for you will depend on many things, including your general health, how your cancer responds to treatment, and which treatments youve already had. Talk to your doctor or nurse about your own situation, or speak to our Specialist Nurses.
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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Strategies To Improve Treatment
The progress that has been made in the treatment of prostate cancer has resulted from development of better treatments that were evaluated in clinical studies. Future progress in the treatment of prostate cancer will result from patients continued participation in appropriate clinical trials. Developing novel precision cancer medicines and immunotherapies is the main area of active current investigation.
Cabazitaxel : Cabazitaxel is administered intravenously and has been demonstrated to improve time to cancer progression and overall survival in men with HRPC previously treated with docetaxel. Cabazitaxels primary side effect is neutropenia, and it is recommended that patients receive a white blood cell growth factor if they are at high risk of this complication.
Sipuleucel-T: Sipuleucel-T is an immunotherapy that prompts the bodys immune system to respond against the cancer. A Phase III clinical trial that contributed to the FDA approval of sipuleucel-T was a study known as IMPACT which demonstrated an improvement in overall survival for men treated with sipuleucel-T. The main side effects reported were chills, fever, and headache.
References:
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What Happens During Treatment
A urinary catheter is inserted through your urethra and into your bladder. Then the BCG solution is injected into the catheter. The catheter is clamped off so the solution stays in your bladder. Some doctors may remove the catheter at this time.
You have to hold the medicine in your bladder. Youll be instructed to lie on your back and to roll from side to side to make sure the solution reaches your entire bladder.
After about two hours, the catheter is unclamped so the fluid can be drained. If the catheter was already removed, youll be asked to empty your bladder at this time.
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Stage 4 Cancer Symptoms
The symptoms of metastatic cancer depend on the type of cancer. In some cases, there are no symptoms at all, so it’s possible to have stage 4 cancer and not know it.
Most of the time, a cancer that reaches stage 4 affects not only the part of the body where it originated but the areas where it has spread to as well.
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Stage 4 cancer also can cause more general symptoms, such as extreme fatigue and lack of energy. Some people become so tired and weak they have trouble doing everyday things. They may even need help with getting dressed or other routine tasks.
Hearing your doctor call a liver tumor “breast cancer” may sound strange. But stage 4 cancer is diagnosed based on where the original cancer is located, not where it has spread. So, breast cancer that has spread to the liver will be called stage 4 breast cancer with liver metastasisnot stage 4 liver cancer.
Treatments To Control And Prevent Symptoms Caused By The Spread Of Prostate Cancer To The Bones
Palliative External beam radiotherapy
Radiopharmaceuticals: Strontium-89 , samarium-153
Radium-223 dichloride is now licensed and called Xofigo. This is not widely available in the UK but BPC is one of a relatively small number of specialist centres using this treatment.
Zolidronic acid is a bisphosphonate given by a 15-minute intravenous infusion every 34 weeks. It reduces the risk of bone complications, including pain and fractures.
Xgeva : this is a newly licensed drug available at BPC.
Pain medications
Surgery may be undertaken to treat bone fractures or to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord by bone metastases.
*https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer/survival
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Understanding Statistics About Survival
Doctors estimate prognosis by using statistics that researchers have collected over many years about people with the same type of cancer. Several types of statistics may be used to estimate prognosis. The most commonly used statistics include:
- Cancer-specific survivalThis is the percentage of patients with a specific type and stage of cancer who have not died from their cancer during a certain period of time after diagnosis. The period of time may be 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, etc., with 5 years being the time period most often used. Cancer-specific survival is also called disease-specific survival. In most cases, cancer-specific survival is based on causes of death listed in medical records.
- Relative survivalThis statistic is another method used to estimate cancer-specific survival that does not use information about the cause of death. It is the percentage of cancer patients who have survived for a certain period of time after diagnosis compared to people who do not have cancer.
- Disease-free survivalThis statistic is the percentage of patients who have no signs of cancer during a certain period of time after treatment. Other names for this statistic are recurrence-free or progression-free survival.
What Does Cancer Remission Mean
Cancer remission is when the signs and symptoms of cancer have lessened or are undetectable.
In blood-related cancers like leukemia, this means youll have a decrease in the number of cancer cells. For solid tumors, that means that the tumor size has decreased. The decrease must last for at least one month to be considered remission.
types of cancer remission
There different types of remission:
- Partial. A reduction of at least 50 percent in measurable tumor size or cancer cells
- Complete. All detectable evidence of cancer is gone.
- Spontaneous. When cancer goes into remission without therapy considered adequate to otherwise lead to remission. This usually happens after a fever or infection, and is rare.
Remission is not a cure, and it doesnt mean that youre totally cancer-free. Even in complete remission, there can still be some cancer cells in your body, and these can start growing again.
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What Is The Treatment For Advanced Prostate Cancer
No matter where prostate cancer spreads, its still treated as prostate cancer. Its harder to treat when it reaches an advanced stage.
Treatment for advanced prostate cancer involves targeted and systemic therapies. Most men need a combination of treatments and they may have to be adjusted from time to time.
Treatment Options Under Clinical Evaluation
Treatment options under clinical evaluation for patients with prostate cancer include the following:
Cryosurgery
Cryosurgery, or cryotherapy, is under evaluation for the treatment of localized prostate cancer. It is a surgical technique that involves destruction of prostate cancer cells by intermittent freezing of the prostate with cryoprobes, followed by thawing. There is limited evidence regarding its efficacy and safety compared with standard prostatectomy and radiation therapy, and the technique is evolving in an attempt to reduce local toxicity and normal tissue damage. The quality of evidence on efficacy is low, currently limited to case series of relatively small size, short follow-up, and surrogate outcomes of efficacy.
Serious toxic effects associated with cryosurgery include bladder outlet injury, urinary incontinence, sexual impotence, and rectal injury. Impotence is common, ranging from about 47% to 100%.
The frequency of other side effects and the probability of cancer control at 5 years’ follow-up have varied among reporting centers, and series are small compared with surgery and radiation therapy. Other major complications include urethral sloughing, urinary fistula or stricture, and bladder neck obstruction.
Proton-beam therapy
Vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy using a photosensitizing agent has been tested in men with low-risk prostate cancer.
Neoadjuvant hormonal therapy
The role of neoadjuvant hormonal therapy is not established.
Bicalutamide
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How Prostate Cancer Is Diagnosed And Staged
Cancer staging helps you and your doctor understand how advanced your cancer is and how much it has spread at the time of diagnosis. Knowing your cancer stage also helps your doctor determine the best treatment options for you and estimate your chance of survival.
The most widely used staging system for cancer is the TNM system that classifies cancer from stage 1 to stage 4.
TNM stands for:
- Tumor: the size and extent of the tumor
- Nodes: the number or extent of nearby lymph node involvement
- Metastasis: whether cancer has spread to distant sites in the body
The TNM scale is used for many types of cancer. When a doctor uses it to determine your prostate cancer stage, theyll consider several other factors as well, including:
Physical Emotional And Social Effects Of Cancer
Cancer and its treatment cause physical symptoms and side effects, as well as emotional, social, and financial effects. Managing all of these effects is called palliative care or supportive care. It is an important part of your care that is included along with treatments intended to slow, stop, or eliminate the cancer.
Palliative care focuses on improving how you feel during treatment by managing symptoms and supporting patients and their families with other, non-medical needs. Any person, regardless of age or type and stage of cancer, may receive this type of care. And it often works best when it is started right after a cancer diagnosis. People who receive palliative care along with treatment for the cancer often have less severe symptoms, better quality of life, and report that they are more satisfied with treatment.
Palliative treatments vary widely and often include medication, nutritional changes, relaxation techniques, emotional and spiritual support, and other therapies. You may also receive palliative treatments similar to those meant to get rid of the cancer, such as chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation therapy.
Learn more about the importance of tracking side effects in another part of this guide. Learn more about palliative care in a separate section of this website.
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Prostate Cancer Risk Groups
Prostate cancer can be categorised into one of 5 risk groups in the Cambridge Prognostic Group .
Doctors will look at the Grade Group , prostate specific antigen level and tumour stage to decide which CPG group the prostate cancer is.
The risk group of the cancer will help determine which types of treatments will be necessary.
If prostate cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, the chances of survival are generally good.
What Is Remission In Cancer
The term accurately describes the state in which there is no evidence of cancer, but there remains a possibility that it may return. Unlike a cured disease, which is gone and is no longer in need of surveillance, remissionwhether complete or partialsuggests the need for ongoing monitoring to identify and treat a recurrence if and when it occurs.
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Support For Living With Secondary Breast Cancer
Everyones experience of being diagnosed with secondary breast cancer is different, and people cope in their own way.
For many people, uncertainty can be the hardest part of living with secondary breast cancer.
You may find it helpful to talk to someone else whos had a diagnosis of secondary breast cancer.
- Chat to other people living with secondary breast cancer on our online Forum.
- Meet other women with a secondary diagnosis and get information and support at a Living with Secondary Breast Cancer meet-up.
- Live Chat is a weekly private chat room where you can talk about whatever is on your mind.
You can also call Breast Cancer Nows Helpline free on 0808 800 6000.
Stage 4 Prostate Cancer: Survival Rates Treatment And Support
Prostate cancer is in stage 4 when the cancer spreads beyond the lymph nodes and into other areas of the body. While the vast majority of prostate cancer cases are caught before this happens, when the cancer is treatable, stage 4 is far more difficult to treat. Therefore, the survival rate among men with stage 4 prostate cancer is much lower.
There are two types of stage 4 prostate cancer: 4A and 4B, according to the American Cancer Society. The type assigned to a persons diagnosis is based on whether the cancer has spread and to what degree, and the value assigned to two additional factors called the Grade Group and the prostate-specific antigen . The Grade Group is a measure of how likely the cancer is to spread quickly, and the PSA is a measure of a protein in the blood produced by cells in the prostate.
With stage 4A, the tumor has already spread into the lymph nodes and may be spreading into tissues adjacent to the prostate, but has not spread to other areas of the body. The Grade Group can be of any value, as can the PSA.
With stage 4B, the tumor may have spread into the lymph nodes, may be spreading into nearby tissues and has spread to other areas of the body like the bones, certain organs and distant lymph nodes. The Grade Group and PSA can be of any value.
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Why You May Need Treatment While In Remission
Because there are still cancer cells in your body even when youre in remission, you might have treatment during remission. This reduces the risk that the remaining cancer cells will start growing again.
Whether or not you have treatment during remission, youll be watched closely to make sure that your cancer doesnt become active again.
The most common type of treatment during remission is maintenance chemotherapy. This is chemo thats given regularly to stop the cancer from spreading.
Maintenance therapy shouldnt make you feel worse. If you find that the side effects start to become too much for you, talk to your doctor. They may take you off maintenance therapy.
Maintenance therapy may also become less effective over time, in which case your doctor may stop the therapy to help ensure your cancer doesnt become resistant to chemo.
For some people, cancer remission can last a lifetime. Others may have their cancer come back, which is called a recurrence.
types of cancer recurrence
- Local. The cancer comes back in the place it was originally found.
- Regional. The cancer comes back in lymph nodes and tissues near the original cancer site.
- Distant. The cancer comes back in other places throughout the body .
The chance of recurrence depends on many things, including the type of cancer you had, what stage the cancer was found in, and your overall health.
The outlook for the five most common types of cancers is: