{"id":19358,"date":"2020-01-13T12:31:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T12:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bensnaturalhealth.com\/blog\/?p=19358"},"modified":"2023-10-20T10:54:40","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T10:54:40","slug":"how-to-decide-between-radiation-or-surgery-for-prostate-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bensnaturalhealth.com\/blog\/prostate-health\/how-to-decide-between-radiation-or-surgery-for-prostate-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgery vs Radiation for Prostate Cancer: How to Decide What To Get"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to know how to decide between radiation or surgery for prostate cancer, you’ve come to the right place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancer in men. It often grows slowly so that most men die of other causes before it becomes clinically advanced and hard to treat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As most prostate cancers are diagnosed in slow-growing stages, they usually do not require immediate treatment decisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For localized and locally advanced prostate cancers, surgery and radiation therapy are the main treatment options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both options have risks, including erectile dysfunction, urinary problems, and bowel complications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your doctor will use the results of your diagnostic tests to balance the treatment benefits against those side effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, we explore the suitability of different treatment options. We’ll help you understand how to decide between radiation or surgery for prostate cancer. We offer information to help you consider the best treatment for your specific disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Treatment options for prostate cancer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Early-stage prostate cancer is often slow-growing. Here, it is hard to balance treatment benefits against its side effects. Therefore, delaying treatment until there is evidence of cancer progression is one way to avoid unnecessary side effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, a doctor may recommend watchful waiting<\/a> or active surveillance to avoid unnecessary treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Watchful waiting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Doctors recommend watchful waiting for older men or those with other terminal illnesses. Men who have less than five years to live are unlikely to experience prostate cancer mediated changes in their natural lifespan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, the doctor usually monitors prostate cancer without conducting routine tests. It is controversial to perform routine screening (PSA-test<\/a> and scans) when prostate cancer is unlikely to negatively impact survival. Therefore, delaying detection and treatment until it shows a sign of disease progression can help maintain a man\u2019s quality of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If prostate cancer causes pain and urinary tract symptoms<\/a>, then hormone treatment may be recommended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Active surveillance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, a doctor may recommend monitoring with routine screening (active surveillance). Active surveillance<\/a> aims to limit treatment to men with progressive disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike watchful waiting, you will get regular PSA tests, MRI scans, and biopsies to monitor the activity of your cancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your doctor will help with treatment decisions when these tests reveal the disease is progressing. It is common to switch to watchful waiting if you experience changes in life expectancy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This change in treatment method aims to eliminate the negative impact of tests and biopsies<\/a> on quality of life. The effectiveness of these approaches is dependent on the reliability of information about coexisting illnesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expect to undertake a repeat biopsy to confirm that prostate cancer is in an early and slow-growing stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Local treatments <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Local treatments, including surgery and radiation therapy, remove cancer from the gland and surrounding tissues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For localized or locally advanced prostate cancer, these methods may cure the disease. However, curative treatment is only beneficial to younger men who are likely to survive prostate progression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to treatment side-effects, older men with shorter life expectancy rarely benefit from radical treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prostate surgeries <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Surgery to remove the prostate gland<\/a>, sometimes with some surrounding lymph nodes is one of the surest ways to treat localized prostate cancer. It is only suitable for curing prostate cancer that has not spread to distant organs. The type of surgery you get will depend on the stage of cancer, your general health, and other clinical factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contemporary surgical methods include highly invasive radical prostatectomy and robotic prostatectomy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on the disease stage some men will get transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). This is considered a minimally invasive surgery, to relieve the urinary symptoms of prostate cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like any surgical procedure, these operations carry some risks. Impaired sexual function is the most common risk, with more than 50% of treated men developing long-term erectile dysfunction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surgeons may use nerve-sparing techniques, when possible, to reduce the damage to the nerves that control erection. Urinary incontinence<\/a> is also a potential complication of prostate surgeries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before surgery, talk to your doctor about the risk of erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence. Your doctor may recommend drugs, penile implants, or injections to fix erectile dysfunction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Radiation therapy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Radiation therapy<\/a> using high-energy rays to destroy cancer cells is an effective way to treat prostate cancer. It is suitable for a variety of cases;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) first treatment for low-grade localized prostate cancer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) part of a combination treatment with hormone therapy for diseases that have spread to nearby tissues<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) to control advanced prostate cancer and relieve symptoms. Compared to surgery, men with low-grade localized experience similar cure rates after radiation therapy or radical prostatectomy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two main types of radiation therapy for prostate cancer; internal radiation (brachytherapy) and external beam radiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In brachytherapy, you may get low or high dose radiation. Low-dose brachytherapy involves placing seeds containing radiation within the prostate gland. The seeds are kept in place for several months to kill prostate cancer cells. Conversely, a surgeon delivers high-dose radiation through a small tube inserted into the prostate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, external-beam radiation therapy remains the most common way of giving radiotherapy for low-grade prostate cancer. For external beam radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and stereotactic radiosurgery<\/a> are typical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, the best radiotherapy for your disease will depend on the cancer stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to short-term side effects like bowel irritation, tiredness, radiation therapy may cause erectile dysfunction<\/a>. However, the rate of long-term side effects is lower following radiation therapy compared to surgical treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Systemic treatments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Systemic treatments are required to target and destroy cancers anywhere in the body because surgery or radiation therapy alone is not useful for metastatic prostate cancer. Two main approaches are hormone treatment and chemotherapy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hormone treatment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of hormone therapy is to stop the production of androgens (testosterone<\/a>). However, prostate cancer cells can become insensitive to androgen levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, they can grow in low testosterone (castration-resistant prostate cancer). Steroid tablets like dexamethasone may be used to stop cancer growth when it is resistant to the hormone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chemotherapy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Chemotherapy involves killing cancer cells with anti-cancer drugs. The purpose of chemotherapy is to block the way cancer cells grow and multiply wherever they are in the body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Docetaxel and Cabazitaxel are the most commonly used drugs for treating advanced prostate cancer. They can also be used alongside hormone therapy in advanced disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systemic treatments for advanced prostate cancer are not curative. They slow the progression of the disease, allowing men to live with fewer symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Considering Surgery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Surgery is a primary treatment option for localized high-risk prostate cancers. After ten years of treatment, surgery reduces disease-specific mortality, overall mortality, risk of disease progression, and cancer metastasis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patients with a biopsy Gleason score<\/a> \u2264 8, PSA less than 20 ng\/ml, and tumor stage \u2264 cT3a benefit most from surgical therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What are the benefits of surgery?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The success rate for surgery to treat prostate cancer is very high when all the cancer is removed. Surgical treatment is generally safe, with most men making a full recovery within two months after surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, surgery provides information about the exact genetics and state of cancer. Genetic analysis of surgically removed prostate tissue allows doctors to estimate prognosis and plan any complementary treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What are the risks of surgery?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Prostate surgery is associated with risks. It is common for men to experience one or more side effects after prostate surgeries<\/a>. Some side effects are short-lived, while others persist for many years after surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Common side effects of prostate surgeries are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n