What Are My Treatment Options for Prostate Cancer or Recurrent Prostate Cancer?

Any cancer diagnosis can come as a shock. With prostate cancer, you may worry about the short- and long-term impact on your libido, personal confidence, and overall physical health. Fortunately, prostate cancer has a 97% five-year survival rate on average. A broad selection of modern therapies is available to treat prostate cancer and prevent it from spreading. 

If you’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer, modern oncology offers many options for treatment. Our team of world-class oncologists at Arizona Center for Cancer Care establishes your treatment plan based on the cancer stage, your age, whether the cancer is recurrent, and other significant factors. They specialize in urologic cancer treatment using the latest available modalities and clinical trials. Simply visit our offices in Avondale, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Surprise, Anthem, Peoria, Fountain Hills, Wickenburg, Apache Junction, Sun City, Sun City West, Goodyear, or Tempe, Arizona. 

If you’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer or recurrent prostate cancer, we’re here to help. Here, we summarize seven standard prostate cancer treatments at Arizona Center for Cancer Care. 

1. Active surveillance

In some cases, oncologists recommend watchful waiting or active surveillance for prostate cancer. This involves monitoring the cancer to see if it grows or spreads after detecting it with a screening. 

Typically, oncologists recommend this strategy for older men without any prostate cancer symptoms, like trouble urinating or blood in urine. 

2. Prostate cancer surgery 

Surgery for prostate cancer removes cancerous tissue from the prostate gland. Surgeons may also remove nearby lymph nodes and surrounding tissue as an added step to prevent cancer from spreading. 

3. Radiation and radiopharmaceutical therapies

Radiation therapy uses highly focused beams of energy called photons to treat certain types of testicular cancers. Radiation side effects are specific to the area being treated.

Similar to radiation therapy are radiopharmaceutical therapies, which use radioactive substances to target cancer internally. Arizona Center for Cancer Care specializes in Pluvicto®, an intravenous (IV) radiopharmaceutical that treats metastatic prostate cancer. 

Pluvicto attaches to biomarkers on the surface of cancer cells before releasing radiation into those cells to damage and kill them. 

Brachytherapy, another form of radiation therapy at Arizona CCC, places permanent radioactive seeds or temporary catheters directly into the cancerous tissue as an alternative to external radiation.

4. Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses powerful medications to treat cancer. Cancer cells vary in their sensitivity to chemotherapy drugs, so our team carefully selects a type of chemotherapy based on the details of your prostate cancer diagnosis. You might benefit from oral chemotherapy or IV chemotherapy administered directly into your bloodstream. 

Immunotherapy is similar to chemotherapy in the sense that it targets cancer cells anywhere in the body. It is different from chemo in that it is a type of biologic therapy which trains the body’s natural immune system to target and fight the cancer. It can be used alone or in combination with chemotherapy. 

5. Hormone therapy

Hormone therapy for prostate cancer either blocks hormones’ actions or reduces levels of specific hormones that help prostate cancer grow, like the sex hormone testosterone. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), for example, prevents testosterone from contributing to prostate cancer growth. 

6. Targeted therapy

Targeted therapy directs medications or other substances to cancer cells which act on specific parts of cancer cells, like enzymes. Targeted therapy is beneficial because it causes less damage to healthy cells in close proximity to cancer cells compared to other treatments like chemotherapy or radiation therapy. 

One example of targeted therapy for prostate cancer, called poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, blocks enzymes within cancerous cells to prevent them from repairing damaged DNA. 

This is typically an effective treatment option for late-stage prostate cancer that doesn’t improve with hormone therapy and other treatments in earlier stages. 

Get in touch to explore your options

Our team evaluates your prostate cancer or recurrent prostate cancer to determine the most effective course of treatment. Alongside these standard treatments, they may direct you to ongoing clinical trials for prostate cancer treatment. To schedule an appointment, call Arizona Center for Cancer Care or request an appointment online today.