Common Treatments for Advanced Prostate Cancer

[motosue]

Doctors can treat, but not cure, advanced prostate cancer. The goal is to slow down the cancer's spread and help you feel better. Most men with it have a high quality of life for many years.

There are different kinds of treatments, including hormone therapy, immunotherapy, radiation, and chemotherapy. Ask your doctor about the risks, benefits, and side effects of each one, and what's best for you.

Hormone Therapy

The goal is to cut the supply of hormones that fuel your prostate cancer, slowing its growth.

The male sex hormones (called androgens), especially testosterone, can help prostate cancer cells grow inside and outside of the prostate gland. Hormone therapy shuts down this process. It will:

•Dramatically lower your testosterone levels

•Prevent prostate cancer cells from using low levels of androgens

Most doctors think it makes sense to start this type of treatment as soon as prostate cancer becomes advanced. Your doctor may call it "androgen deprivation therapy."

There are several different hormone therapy drugs. Your doctor may give you one or more of them, including:

GnRH agents. These drugs can work in different ways, but ultimately, they block or stop your body from making luteinizing hormone (LH), which it needs to make testosterone. Drugs of this type include:

•Buserelin (Suprefact)

•Degarelix (Firmagon)

•Goserelin (Zoladex)

•Histrelin (Vantas)

•Leuprolide (Eligard, Lupron Depot)

•Triptorelin (Trelstar)

You'll get these drugs by injection every month, 3 months, or 6 months. Doctors implant others under your skin.

Sometimes, these drugs can cause your body to temporarily make a lot of testosterone before the levels drop. To avoid side effects from the hormonal surge, your doctor may also suggest you take another kind of drug, called "anti-androgens."

Anti-androgens. These drugs block the ability of your prostate cancer cells to use androgens.

Three common types of anti-androgen drugs are:

•Bicalutamide (Casodex)

•Flutamide (Eulexin)

•Nilutamide (Nilandron)

You may take these before you start GnRH agents to avoid a hormone flare or if other hormone therapy stops working.

How you take them. Some hormone therapy drugs are pills. Others are injections or pellets that doctors implant under your skin. Your doctor will set your drug schedule based on your particular needs and how your cancer responds.

If you become resistant to hormone therapy or have problems with side effects, your doctor may try "intermittent therapy." This means you'll take the drugs for a while, then stop, then start again. This can improve your quality of life and make the hormone therapy work better.

Newer types of hormone therapy include:

Abiraterone acetate (Zytiga). This pill stops prostate cancer cells (and other cells) from making androgens. It's approved for men with advanced prostate cancer who have tried other hormone therapies.

Enzalutamide (Xtandi). It's a pill that blocks cells from receiving androgens. It's approved for men with advanced prostate cancer who have tried other hormone therapies.

Surgery to Remove the Testicles (Orchiectomy)

Your testicles make most of your testosterone. Surgery to remove the testicles (called an orchiectomy) is a type of hormone therapy because it quickly cuts your testosterone levels.

This operation used to be common, but most men with prostate cancer don't get it any more. Instead, they take medicines that lower hormone levels while leaving the testicles in place.

If you do get the surgery, it's an "outpatient" procedure, which means you won't have to stay in the hospital. Your doctor may also give you anti-androgen therapy.

Immunotherapy

If hormone therapy stops working, your doctor may suggest immunotherapy. It uses the immune system -- your body's defense against germs -- to attack the cancer cells.

Sipuleucel-T (Provenge) is used to treat advanced prostate cancer. To make it, the doctor removes white blood cells from your blood. These go to a lab, where experts genetically engineer them to fight your prostate cancer. You then get these cancer-killing cells by IV injection in three separate treatments.

Radiation Therapy

This treatment uses high-energy rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. You may get it to shrink your tumors and ease symptoms.

You may get radiation therapy from a machine at a clinic, or through substances doctors put into your body.

If your prostate cancer hasn’t spread beyond your bones, your doctor may consider using the drug radium-223 (Xofigo), along with medicine to lower your testosterone level. You get radium-223 by injection once a month. It binds to minerals in your bones to deliver radiation directly to bone tumors.

Chemotherapy

If other treatments stop working and your cancer grows, your doctor may recommend chemotherapy. When to start chemo will depend upon many things, such as:

•Which types of treatment you already had

•Whether you need radiation first

•How well you tolerate chemo

•Which other options are available to you

There are many types of chemo drugs. You get them by IV or as a pill. They travel throughout your body to destroy cancer cells.

Doctors often combine the chemo drug docetaxel (Taxotere) with prednisone, a steroid, for men with hormone-resistant prostate cancer that has spread.

WebMD Medical Reference

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD on December 10, 2016

Sources

[motosue]

The above article came from WebMD.

Just general information I thought would be good to share.

motosue

[Rguerrero1959 in reply to motosue]

I appreciate the info sharing

[Dr_WHO]

Thank you for the information. There is a growing trend to hit advanced cancer with more treatments sooner than later. I have advanced Ductal Prostate Cancer (which does not always raise your PSA) that had spread to the pelvic area but not distant organs or bones. Surgery is becoming more common in cases like mine. Had surgery, then about two months later started 2 years on Lupron and 38 rounds of radiation two months after that. (Time delay for radiation was to allow me to get control of my bladder first.)

[motosue in reply to Dr_WHO]

How did you "get control of my bladder first"? If I can ask. I am trying to do that right now by just stopping my peeing off and on as I pee. Were you able to get control of your bladder? Thanks.

[Dr_WHO]

Well I am still wearing pads 10 months after the surgery. I leak about 10 grams a day. Please look up on the web exercises for pelvic floor muscles. To figure out were your floor muscles are, when you are taking a leak try to stop the flow for about 10 seconds. Try to remember what muscles you tighten. Then practice squeezing them throughout the day. Try to get up to 30 seconds. Also, I rode a bike for at least two hours. Bicycle seats put pressure on the pelvic floor muscles. Finally, I had scar tissue formed after the surgery which helps regain flow control.

[motosue]

Thanks. I'm doing it. I sit at a desk so I have no excuse to not do it.

[Dr_WHO in reply to motosue]

Good luck!

[bjorner3]

liked reading this puts things in very easy order to follow. Good starting point in understanding PC. Thanks for sharing!