Introduction to common treatments for prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is one of the common malignant tumors that endangers men's health. With its increasing incidence, it has gradually attracted the attention of more men. With the development of medicine, its treatment methods are also increasing. So what are the common treatments for prostate cancer?

Surgery is currently the preferred treatment for prostate cancer.

Endocrine therapy: Endocrine therapy is a commonly used treatment for advanced prostate cancer, and its efficacy is relatively certain. Since prostate cancer is typically hormone-dependent, endocrine therapy can significantly alleviate prostate lesions and symptoms in clinical practice, but it has no significant effect on the patient's survival.

Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy is a common adjuvant treatment for advanced prostate cancer. It is mainly used for patients who have undergone surgery or radiotherapy and whose local tumors have been eliminated. Chemotherapy drugs are used to eliminate potential small lesions that are currently undetectable. Chemotherapy drugs alone cannot cure the primary lesions. Adjuvant chemotherapy can prolong the patient's survival after surgery. Experiments have found that the most sensitive chemotherapy drug for prostate cancer is cyclophosphamide.

Radiotherapy: Radiotherapy has a good therapeutic effect on prostate cancer and can significantly reduce the size of prostate tumor lesions. It is mainly used for patients who have difficulty in surgical resection or cannot be removed but have not yet metastasized to distant sites. Radiotherapy is divided into internal radiation therapy, external radiation therapy and palliative radiotherapy, among which the most commonly used is external radiation therapy.

Surgical treatment: Surgical treatment is currently the preferred treatment for prostate cancer. However, since prostate cancer is often discovered in the late stage, the best time for surgery is often missed. Most prostate cancer patients are elderly, and radical prostate surgery often causes serious damage, so the indications and contraindications should be strictly controlled. In recent years, a minimally invasive treatment, transurethral resection of the prostate, has been newly developed to reduce the degree of obstruction of the bladder neck and improve the symptoms of dysuria, thereby improving the quality of life of patients.

Reminder: Prostate cancer treatment should follow the following three principles

If the tumor has only spread locally to the bladder or rectum and has not yet metastasized to distant sites, a complete pelvic exenteration can be used, but this approach is often ineffective. Extensive surgery may accelerate the spread of tumor cells. This is one of the more common principles of prostate cancer treatment.

For prostate cancer patients who cannot undergo surgery, radiotherapy is not only sensitive to a few lymphosarcoma and reticulum cell sarcoma, but also has some help for leiomyosarcoma. This is also one of the treatment principles for prostate cancer.

Thirdly, if the prostate sarcoma is confined to the prostate capsule and has not yet infiltrated outside, surgery should be performed as soon as possible, with radical cystoprostatectomy, which is also one of the treatment principles for prostate cancer.