How to Treat the Late Stages of Prostate Cancer

According to information from the medical website Medline Plus, prostate cancer most often affects men over the age of 60, and rarely strikes before 40. While prostate cancer is fairly curable during its early stages, late-stage prostate cancer (where the condition has spread beyond the prostate) has fewer options for treatment. Nevertheless, it is still possible to use treatment to prolong your lifespan and improve your overall quality of living, even with late-stage prostate cancer.

Instructions

• 1

  Talk to your doctor about how far the cancer has spread. Treatment options are going to vary depending on how far from the original site the cancer has traveled. Tests such as a biopsy, digital rectal exam or computer imaging scan can help to determine whether your cancer is confined to the general region of the prostate (in the seminal vessels and bladder) or whether it has metastasized to distant organs in other areas of the body.

• 2

  Consider treatment methods to eliminate the cancer itself, if your physician thinks it is still feasible to push to the cancer into remission. Such treatment options include external radiation therapy to destroy the cancer's ability to reproduce, radical prostatectomy (removal of the prostate), or either systemic or local chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous tissue.

• 3

  Consider palliative methods to slow the spread of the cancer or increase your lifespan, if your cancer is too far advanced to push it into remission. These treatment methods include tumor debulking (removing a portion of a tumor to slow its spread), or palliative chemotherapy or radiation therapy, which is given to alleviate symptoms of cancer rather than to force remission.

• 4

  Try hormone therapy to slow the spread of prostate cancer. This consists of the administration of drugs to lower or eliminate your body's production of testosterone, because prostate cancer seems to thrive in a testosterone-rich environment. Hormone therapy can slow the spread of the cancer dramatically.