Basic Facts
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed in American men only exceeded by lung cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that 232,000 cases will be diagnosed in the United this year alone.
Seventy-nine percent of all prostate cancers are discovered in the local and regional stages when the 5-year survival rate for patients is almost 100 percent.

There is no major difference between surgery and radiation therapy in terms of the percentage of men still alive 10 years after treatment. However, surgery may result in lower recurrence rates 15 years after treatment.
Prostate cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the prostate. Cancer cells slowly progress to become a mass called a tumor. Tumors can metastasize, meaning they spread beyond the prostate, which is a sign of advanced disease. Metastatic tumors may eventually be fatal.

The goal of prostate cancer therapies is to cure the cancer or to manage the symptoms of the disease.
Physicians may recommend not actively treating slow-growing cancers to avoid the risks and side effects of treatment. This approach is called ‘watchful waiting.’

The active treatments for prostate cancer include:

• Surgery
• Cryotherapy
• Radiation therapy
• Hormone therapy
• Chemotherapy

It is possible to cure prostate cancer. The likelihood of a cure depends on the grade and stage of cancer and a man’s pretreatment level of prostate specific antigen (PSA).

When is it indicated?
Physicians must know the grade and stage of cancer before selecting treatment. Grade refers to how much of the cancerous prostate tissue resembles normal prostate tissue. The process of determining where the prostate cancer is and how far it has spread is called staging.

Along with surgical options, hormone therapy and chemotherapy, Drs. John Lyne and Carlos Vivas perform the following treatments at Grove City Medical Center:

Cryosurgery
This type of surgery treats localized cancer by freezing cancer cells until they die. After the patient receives spinal or general anesthesia, the surgeon inserts between 6 and 8 long, thin metal probes through the skin between the anus and scrotum and guides them to the cancerous prostate tissue. Once activated, the probes send a freezing agent to destroy the cancerous tissue.

Radiation Therapy
Brachytherapy is a type of internal radiation, or the implantation of small radioactive pellets into the prostate. Like cryosurgery, brachytherapy uses probes that insert into the skin between the anus and the scrotum to deliver the radioactive pellets. Another form of brachytherapy uses hollow needles that contain iridium, a radioactive source.

Often, brachytherapy is combined with external beam radiation to intensify treatment.