If you're facing prostate cancer, understanding your options is key to making the best treatment choice for you and your family. In many cases, patients have several treatment options.
Treatment Choices
Because UW Medical Center is a teaching and research hospital, we offer a full range of current treatment methods:
- Urologic surgery, including a new nerve identification device that minimizes the risk of post-surgical impotence
- Radiation oncology, including radioactive "seeds," or brachytherapy, neutron therapy, high-dose conformal radiotherapy, and intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) are options that allow physicians to more precisely target the cancer
- Medical oncology, including hormone therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, new drugs, and vaccines.
Radiation treatment of prostate cancer
Radiation treatment is one of the preferred ways of managing localized prostate cancer. At the time that a patient is first diagnosed with prostate cancer, a number of tests are performed to determine whether the tumor appears to be localized to the prostate or to have spread beyond the prostate. These studies may include ultrasound imaging of the prostate, CAT scans of the pelvis, or bone scans.
Once it is determined that the prostate cancer appears localized, treatment may involve the implantation of radioactive pellets into the prostate, a procedure referred to as "prostate brachytherapy." Alternately, treatment may be delivered using a series of outpatient X-ray treatments. This latter approach focuses multiple radiation beams on the prostate, contouring the dose to the tumor and avoiding adjacent normal tissues and organs. This type of treatment is also referred to as intensity modulated or "IMRT." There are clinical situations when it may be desirable to use a combination of external beam radiation as well as a prostate seed implant for specific patients. Additionally, there are times when it is advantageous to combine hormonal treatment with radiation.
More informatin about prostate cancer can be found on the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance's Web site.