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What Is The Treatment For Prostate Cancer That Has Spread

Advanced Prostate Cancer And Bone Metastases

Understanding Prostate Cancer

Most all prostate cancer patients worry about metastases. Metastases used to signal that death was near. Most prostate cancer metastases take place in bones. New treatments such as Xofigo have helped thousands of men delay health while maintaining a pain free high quality of life. Bone metastases are tumors that have spread from the prostate to your bones. Usually bone metastases occur in the pelvis, spine, thighs and ribs. But, they can develop in any bone anywhere in your body. Bone metastases can become extremely painful. Which is why it is reasonable and very human to fear bone metastases. So, if you are feeling anything that you imagine to be bone pain, talk to your doctor right away.

Diagnosing Bone Metastases

Bone metastases symptoms are sometimes confused with arthritis. The symptoms such as pain seem to be the same. So, if you are already diagnosed with prostate cancer, you must talk to your doctor about anything at all that you imagine to be pain in your bones. X-rays can diagnose bone metastases best, but bone scans, CT scans, PET scans, MRIs and blood tests are also used for diagnosis.

Untreated bone metastases in a man with castrate resistant prostate cancer could cause fractures and other skeletal problems none of which are pleasant.

Early detection of bone metastases allows more effective treatment to delay bone pain and other complications.

Preventing and Treating Bone Metastases

The most common side effects of Radium 223 are:

What Is The Source Of The Information

Researchers funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a Federal Government research agency, reviewed studies on treatments for localized prostate cancer published between January 1, 2007, and March 7, 2014. The report included 52 studies and was reviewed by health care professionals, researchers, experts, and the public.

What Is Advanced Prostate Cancer

When prostate cancer spreads beyond the prostate or returns after treatment, it is often called advanced prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is often grouped into four stages.

  • Stages I & II: The tumor has not spread beyond the prostate. This is often called early stage or localized prostate cancer.
  • Stage III: Cancer has spread outside the prostate, but only to nearby tissues. This is often called locally advanced prostate cancer.
  • Stage IV: Cancer has spread outside the prostate to other parts such as the lymph nodes, bones, liver or lungs. This stage is often called advanced prostate cancer.

When an early stage prostate cancer is found, it may be treated or placed on surveillance . If prostate cancer spreads beyond the prostate or returns after treatment, it is often called advanced prostate cancer. Stage IV prostate cancer is not curable, but there are many ways to control it. Treatment can stop advanced prostate cancer from growing and causing symptoms.

There are several types of advanced prostate cancer, including:

Biochemical Recurrence

If your Prostate Specific Antigen level has risen after the first treatment but you have no other signs of cancer, you have “biochemical recurrence.”

Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer

Non-Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer

Metastatic Prostate Cancer

  • Lymph nodes outside the pelvis
  • Bones
  • Other organs

Metastatic Hormone-Sensitive Prostate Cancer

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Treatment By Stage Of Prostate Cancer

Different treatments may be recommended for each stage of prostate cancer. Your doctor will recommend a specific treatment plan for you based on the cancers stage and other factors. Detailed descriptions of each type of treatment are provided earlier on this same page. Clinical trials may also be a treatment option for each stage.

Early-stage prostate cancer

Early-stage prostate cancer usually grows very slowly and may take years to cause any symptoms or other health problems, if it ever does at all. As a result, active surveillance or watchful waiting may be recommended. Radiation therapy or surgery may also be suggested, as well as treatment in clinical trials. For those with a higher Gleason score, the cancer may be faster growing, so radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy are often recommended. Your doctor will consider your age and general health before recommending a treatment plan.

ASCO, the American Urological Association, American Society of Radiation Oncology, and the Society of Urologic Oncology recommend that patients with high-risk early-stage prostate cancer that has not spread to other areas of the body should receive radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy with hormonal therapy as standard treatment options.

Locally advanced prostate cancer

Watchful waiting may be considered for older adults who are not expected to live for a long time and whose cancer is not causing symptoms or for those who have another, more serious illness.

What Is Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Where prostate cancer spreads determines how long a ...

Sometimes cancer cells will escape the prostate and grow quickly, spreading to nearby tissue, or metastasizing. Nearby lymph nodes are often the first destination for a spreading cancer. If prostate cancer has spread to your lymph nodes when it is diagnosed, it means that there is higher chance that it has spread to other areas of the body as well.

If and when prostate cancer cells gain access to the bloodstream, they can be deposited in various sites throughout the body, most commonly in bones, and more rarely to other organs such as the liver, lung, or brain. Bone metastases are seen in 85% to 90% of metastatic cases.

No matter where a cancer turns up in the body, it is always identified by the tissue type in which it started. Prostate cancer can metastasize to other organs, but it is always prostate cancer, because it consists of mutated prostate cells.

Men diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer , will often not undergo local treatments of the primary prostate tumor, such as surgery or radiation. Instead, their therapeutic journey might start with hormone therapy, and from there follow a similar path as men who were diagnosed at an earlier stage and had subsequent disease progression.

Want more information about a prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment options? Download or order a print copy of the Prostate Cancer Patient Guide.

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Are Prostate Problems Always A Sign Of Prostate Cancer

Not all growths in the prostate are cancerous, and not all prostate problems indicate cancer. Other conditions that cause similar prostate cancer symptoms include:

  • Benign prostatic hyperplasia : At some point, almost every man will develop benign prostatic hyperplasia . This condition enlarges the prostate gland but doesnt increase cancer risk. The swollen gland squeezes the urethra and blocks the flow of semen and urine. Medications, and sometimes surgery, can help.
  • Prostatitis: Men younger than 50 are more prone to prostatitis, inflammation and swelling of the prostate gland. Bacterial infections are often the cause. Treatments include antibiotics or other medications.

There Are Different Types Of Treatment For Patients With Prostate Cancer

Different types of treatment are available for patients withprostate cancer. Some treatments are standard , and some are being tested in clinical trials. A treatment clinical trial is a research study meant to help improve current treatments or obtain information on new treatments for patients with cancer. When clinical trials show that a new treatment is better than the standard treatment, the new treatment may become the standard treatment. Patients may want to think about taking part in a clinical trial. Some clinical trials are open only to patients who have not started treatment.

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Electroporation Of Lymph Nodes In Prostate Cancer

Targeted and gentle removal of affected lymph nodes without irradiation or surgery

Illustration 1: The lymphatic system.1

Prostate cancer often spreads into the surrounding lymph nodes. This is called lymph node metastases. The standard treatment is the surgical removal of all pelvic lymph nodes, which is a substantial intervention. Targeted radiation therapies can be an alternative, but these therapies severely restrict the options of follow-up treatments, which are unfortunately often necessary in case of scattered cancer. With NanoKnife, there now is the possibility for high-precision and minimally invasive treatment of lymph node metastases without radiation or surgery.

What are lymph nodes and lymph node metastases?

Lymph nodes are up to one centimeter large, bean-shaped organs, which are interlinked and connected to the so-called lymphatic system. They are also part of the immune system. In the lymph system, instead of blood, lymph fluid is transported. In this system the lymph nodes are the stations, where the lymph is filtered.

Lymph node metastases are the scattered cancer cells in lymph nodes . They usually cause no symptoms. Usually they are detected either by modern imaging techniques or by the histological analysis of the lymph nodes themselves, when removed prophylactically during a surgery.

Illustration 2: The remodulation of lymphatic vessels, which pre-drives the metastasis in cancer.2

The first important step: the precise diagnosis

Men With Prostate Cancer Metastasized To The Liver Have Worst Overall Median Survival

How to Know If Cancer Has Spread | Prostate Cancer

Men whose castration-resistant prostate cancer has metastasized to the liver have the worst overall median survival when compared with those with lymph-only, lung, or bone metastases, the largest meta-analysis of its kind has found.1

These results can change the current treatment landscape for men in each of the metastatic subgroups.

Physicians may treat men with liver metastases more aggressively than men if they had bone or liver metastases, lead study author Susan Halabi, PhD, professor of biostatistics at Duke University in Durham, NC, told Cancer Therapy Advisor.

The impetus behind the study was to determine if liver metastases had an impact on survival, which had been suggested in past studies with small numbers of men with liver or lung metastases.

Our understanding of what drives the development of different metastatic patterns of this disease is limited and underscores the need to biopsy patients with recurrences to identify underlying mechanisms and develop novel treatment approaches for men with mCRPC, Dr Halabi reported.

Investigators from 20 United States and international cancer research centers pulled individual patient data on 8820 men enrolled in 9 phase 3 study trials between October 1999 and November 2012: SWOG 9916, TAX 327, Cancer and Leukemia Group B 90401, SWOG 0421, VENICE, Endothelin A Use , READY, MAINSAIL, and SYNERGY.

Metastatic disease was classified as 1 of 2 mutually exclusive groups, non-visceral or visceral disease.

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What Is Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer develops in the prostate, a small gland that makes seminal fluid. It is one of the most common types of cancer in men. Prostate cancer usually grows over time and in the beginning, typically stays within the prostate gland, where it may not cause serious harm. While some types of prostate cancer grow slowly and may need only a minimal amount of treatment or no treatment at all, other types are aggressive and can spread quickly.

When prostate cancer is caught early, a person has a better chance of treating it successfully.

Advanced And Metastatic Prostate Cancer What Is It

02 October 2020

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian men, with about 17,000 men newly diagnosed each year. For most men the long-term outlook is very good – relative to the general population and considering other causes of death, 95% of men with prostate cancer will survive at least five years after diagnosis and 91% of men with prostate cancer will survive 10 years or more. Today there are around 220,000 Australian men alive after a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Of concern to our mission, for men who develop advanced prostate cancer, the outlook is not as good. Prostate cancer kills more than 3,000 men in Australia every year, representing about 12% of all male deaths from cancer. So, what is advanced prostate cancer, how is it detected and how is it treated?

What is the prostate?

The prostate is a small gland located below the bladder and in front of the rectum in men. It surrounds the urethra, the passage that leads from the bladder, out through the penis through which urine and semen pass out of the body. The prostate gland is part of the male reproductive system .

The prostate produces some of the fluid that makes up semen, which enriches and protects sperm. The prostate needs the male hormone testosterone to grow and develop. Testosterone is made by the testicles.

What is prostate cancer?

Diagnosing advanced and metastatic prostate cancer

Further tests to determine where the cancer has spread to and the size of the cancers include:

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Watchful Waiting Or Active Surveillance

Prostate cancer treatments can have side effects. If you’re worried about these risks, you can decide to hold off on these treatments and see if your tumor grows. Waiting is also an option if youâre older, your cancer is growing slowly, or you don’t have symptoms that bother you.

Waiting does not mean that you do nothing about your cancer. Your doctor will keep a close eye on the tumor and watch for any signs that itâs getting worse.

Watchful waiting means you and your doctor will look out for symptoms. The doctor may do tests from time to time to make sure the cancer hasn’t grown.

Active surveillance means your doctor will do tests, including PSA blood tests and rectal exams, usually about every 3-6 months to check on it. You may also have a biopsy, when a doctor takes a small piece of tissue from your prostate and checks it for cancer.

Surgery For Prostate Cancer

When prostate cancer spreads, where it goes matters

In some cases of advanced or recurrent prostate cancer, surgeons may remove the entire prostate gland in a surgery known as “salvage” prostatectomy. They usually do not perform the nerve-sparing form of prostatectomy. Often, surgeons will remove the pelvic lymph nodes at the same time.

Cyrosurgery may be used in cases of recurrent prostate cancer if the cancer has not spread beyond the prostate. Cryosurgery is the use of extreme cold to destroy cancer cells.

To reduce testosterone levels in the body, doctors may sometimes recommend removing the testicles, a surgery called orchiectomy. After this surgery, some men choose to get prosthetics that resemble the shape of testicles.

Doctors may also remove part of the prostate gland with one of two procedures, either a transurethral resection of the prostate or a transurethral incision of the prostate . This relieves blockage caused by the prostate tumor, so urine can flow normally. This is a palliative measure, which means it is done to increase the patient’s comfort level, not to treat the prostate cancer itself.

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The Role Of Inflammation

Acute inflammation is a biological response triggered by harmful stimuli such as infection, trauma, and tissue injury to eliminate the source of damage . The tumor microenvironment is unequivocally linked with inflammation, whether the infiltration of immune cells engages with tumor cells causing inflammation or chronic inflammation promotes the malignant transformation of cells and carcinogenesis .

In an experiment performed by Morrissey et al., it was found that IL-6 was highly expressed in prostate cancer bone metastases. PC-3 cells inhibited osteoblast activity and induced osteoblast to produce IL-6 that promoted osteoclastogenesis . In addition, a recent study by Roca et al. observed that macrophage-driven efferocytosis induced the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 5 by activating the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and the nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells signaling. CXCL5-deficient mice had reduced tumor progression. These findings suggested that the myeloid phagocytic clearance of apoptotic cancer cells accelerated CXCL5-mediated inflammation and tumor growth in bone . In summary, findings from available evidence suggest the alleviation of chronic inflammation as a potential therapeutic approach for prostate cancer bone metastases.

A Different Way To Detect Metastases

Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer have localized disease, meaning the cancer appears to be confined to the prostate gland. However, certain factors have been linked to a higher risk of the cancer eventually spreading .

Currently, in the United States and many other countries, most men diagnosed with high-risk localized prostate cancer undergo additional testing to see if there is evidence of metastatic cancer. For many years, that has been done with a conventional CT scan and a bone scan , the latter because prostate cancer often spreads to the bones.

But both imaging technologies have limitations. Neither is particularly good at finding individual prostate cancer cells, and thus can miss very small tumors. And bone scans can detect bone damage or abnormalities that were caused by something other than cancer , resulting in false-positive findings that can lead to unnecessary additional testing.

So, researchers have been developing and testing other imaging agents that can find prostate cancer cells specifically in the body, Dr. Shankar explained.

As their name implies, PET-CT scans combine a CT scan with a PET scan, another type of nuclear imaging test that requires patients to receive intravenous injections of a radioactive tracer that can be detected on the scan.

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Your Cancer Care Team

People with cancer should be cared for by a multidisciplinary team . This is a team of specialists who work together to provide the best care and treatment.

The team often consists of specialist cancer surgeons, oncologists , radiologists, pathologists, radiographers and specialist nurses.

Other members may include physiotherapists, dietitians and occupational therapists. You may also have access to clinical psychology support.

When deciding what treatment is best for you, your doctors will consider:

  • the type and size of the cancer
  • what grade it is
  • whether the cancer has spread to other parts of your body

What Are My Treatment Options With Advanced Prostate Cancer

Understanding Advanced Prostate Cancer

The treatments your doctor recommends will depend on factors specific to you, from your overall health to how advanced your cancer was when it was first diagnosed.

Many men receive ADT, a type of hormone therapy, which deprives the body of the male hormones that the cancer needs to keep growing.

For most men, however, hormone therapy stops working at some point. Alternatives to hormone therapy were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2018, and Tagawa often starts men on these therapies as soon as theyre diagnosed with bone metastases. Other treatment options may be available through clinical trials.

In addition, chemotherapy, surgery, and immunotherapy as well as radiation treatments, like external beam radiation, which directly target bone problems may be considered. Major cancer centers, such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, have teams of prostate cancer specialists, as well as sophisticated radiation and other treatment equipment consolidated in one place, which can help with the coordination of care.

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