Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Which Is The Best Prostate Cancer Therapy?

By Owen Jones


This question bothers millions of individuals worldwide each year. Although prostate cancer can only affect men, any significant, life-threatening infection has an effect on not merely the sufferer, but also his family and friends. Doctors and surgeons also wonder what the best prostate cancer treatment is each week.

In this piece, we will try to give you some food for thought on the issue so that you may do more research on the Internet later or have some questions prepared to pose to your gp.

It is better to be able to comprehend the terminology and have some fundamental concept of what the disease is than to be completely oblivious.

Having said that, you should not use this article of around five hundred words to base your medical judgments on. This piece is only meant as a motivation for further investigation.

The first thing to consider is the general health of the sufferer and the phase of development of the cancer. These two issues will establish which treatment is most suitable. The important thing with prostate cancer is to catch it very early on because it spreads so rapidly when likened with most other cancers and spreads early.

If you have been having regular check-ups and the cancer has been noticed early, your physician might make a decision that he wants to 'wait and see'. This can be upsetting for the patient as the patient expects cancer to be taken on instantly.

However, if the cancer is in an early stage, it may be better to monitor its speed of development before deciding what to do about it After all, you do not want to go through unnecessary remedies, only to have to be treated again afterwards.

if you are worried about waiting or the treatment suggested (or combination of remedies), go for a second opinion. You will not offend your physician by doing this, in fact, it relieves him of some responsibility, so he will probably be glad of it.

If the cancer is still small, hormonal treatment might be recommended. Male hormones are partially responsible for the speed of growth of prostate cancer, so if you reduce or cut off these hormones (testosterone in particular), the rate of growth of the cancer ought to slow down.

It might become possible to do this with medication or surgery might become unavoidable. This will mean castration either chemical or surgical. Both sound radical, but it might mean less side effects.

Again, if the cancer is small, they may make a decision to try to kill it with external radiotherapy beams. These beams resemble X-Rays, but far less perilous to healthy tissue. That is, they can be tightly focused on the cancerous cells, causing very little collateral damage.

If the cancer is spreading fast, the team may suggest cutting it out. This may involve a full or partial prostatectomy. This is why waiting and watching it might be a good tactic in the early stages. You do not want radical surgery if it is not absolutely vital.

There are quite a few options for the treatment of prostate cancer and over 80% of sufferers are cured, but it has to do with those regular tests to a large extent.




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