How Long Can You Live With Prostate Cancer Without Treatment

Prognosis And Survival For Bladder Cancer

If you have bladder cancer, you may have questions about your prognosis. A prognosis is the doctors best estimate of how cancer will affect someone and how it will respond to treatment. Prognosis and survival depend on many factors. Only a doctor familiar with your medical history, the type and stage and other features of the cancer, the treatments chosen and the response to treatment can put all of this information together with survival statistics to arrive at a prognosis.

A prognostic factor is an aspect of the cancer or a characteristic of the person that the doctor will consider when making a prognosis. A predictive factor influences how a cancer will respond to a certain treatment. Prognostic and predictive factors are often discussed together. They both play a part in deciding on a treatment plan and a prognosis.

The following are prognostic and predictive factors for bladder cancer.

Should I Have A Psa Test

• The Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme gives you information on risks and benefits of the PSA test to help you decide whether or not to have it. Go to the website
• Also, an online decision aid called Prosdex provides information, including real-life stories, to help you make a decision on whether or not to have the PSA test.

How Is Prostate Cancer Diagnosed

Doctors describe the growth and spread of prostate cancer in stages. Doctors use these stages as guides when choosing treatment options or offering prognoses to their patients.

Prostate cancer staging is based on a number of different factors, including prostate cancer screening tests such as a digital rectal exam or  prostate-specific antigen test and imaging studies like bones scans, MRIs, CT scans, and trans-rectal ultrasounds.

Also Check: How To Massage A Man’s Prostate

Castrate Refractory Prostate Cancer: A Wider Range Of Options

In this section, we explain the treatments available at Birmingham Prostate Clinic for patients once their disease becomes resistant to hormone treatment, called castrate refractory prostate cancer. Two types of treatments are needed to:

• Control the cancer and preventing further spread of cancer
• Control or prevent the symptoms caused by the spread of prostate cancer to the bones

Improvements In Life Expectancy

A decade ago, a man with metastatic prostate cancer would typically have a life expectancy of two to three years. Today, life expectancy for men with the same advanced disease is likely to be five to six years. There is now a much broader range of chemotherapy drugs available for men with advanced disease with greater efficacy . We also have better treatments to control the symptoms of advanced prostate cancer, such as pain from metastases. In this section, we consider in more detail the different treatments that are available and evidence for their effectiveness.

Also Check: Is Masturbation Good For Your Prostate

How Is Advanced Prostate Cancer Diagnosed

If youve previously been diagnosed with prostate cancer, be sure to tell your doctor if you have any new symptoms, even if youve completed treatment.

To determine if prostate cancer has returned or has spread, your doctor will likely order some imaging tests, which may include:

• X-rays
• PET scans
• bone scans

You probably wont need all of these tests. Your doctor will choose the tests based on your symptoms and physical exam.

If any of the images reveal abnormalities, it doesnt necessarily mean that you have cancer. Additional testing may be necessary. If they find a mass, your doctor will probably order a biopsy.

For a biopsy, your doctor will use a needle to remove samples from the suspicious area. A pathologist will then analyze the removed cells under a microscope to see if theyre cancerous. The pathologist can also determine if you have an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Managing Bone Pain And Weakness

Symptoms like nausea, hot flashes, and pain can usually be relieved with medication. Some people find that complimentary treatments like acupuncture or massage help manage side effects.

Your doctor may also recommend orthopedic surgery to stabilize your bones, relieve pain, and help prevent bone fractures.

Don’t Miss: How To Massage Your Own Prostate Gland

Treating Prostate Cancer That Doesnt Go Away Or Comes Back After Treatment

If your prostate-specific antigen blood level shows that your prostate cancer has not been cured or has come back after the initial treatment, further treatment can often still be helpful. Follow-up treatment will depend on where the cancer is thought to be and what treatment you’ve already had. Imaging tests such as CT, MRI, or bone scans may be done to get a better idea about where the cancer is.

Prostate Cancer Survival Rates

Answering the question of how curable is prostate cancer? first requires understanding what doctors mean when they refer to curability. Regardless of the type of cancer, doctors consider cancer cured when a patient remains cancer-free for a specified period after treatment. The higher the number of patients who stay cancer-free for five years or longer, the higher the curability of that particular disease.

Prostate cancer, therefore, has one of the highest curability rates of all types of cancer, thanks in large part to early detection standards and advances in treatment, such as the stereotactic body radiation therapy offered by Pasadena CyberKnife. When the cancer is detected in the early local or regional stages that is, before the cancer has spread or when it has only spread to limited areas in the pelvic regions the five-year survival rate is nearly 100 percent.

Survival rates decline significantly when cancer is detected at later stages; however, the good news is that only about five percent of men are diagnosed after the cancer has become widespread throughout the body. In short, more than 90 percent of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer live for five years or longer after treatment, making it one of the most curable forms of cancer.

Also Check: Can Exercise Reduce Prostate Size

Advanced Prostate Cancer Life Expectancy And Prognosis

Typically, each stage of prostate cancer has different prognosis. In general, the advanced stages of the disease are much more difficult to treat than when the disease is still at early stage not yet spread. What are factors that affect the outlook and life expectancy of patient? The following are some statistics for each stage of this disease.

You might also like to know more about how fast prostate cancer spreads and what are the most common sites /organs of the body for the metastasis of this cancer in this section, before continuing

One thing you need to clearly understand that there is no any statistic that can be detail enough to tell you about what will happen. In other words, this statistic is only purposed for general information! In fact, each case of cancer is unique. So, there is always a chance and a hope for anyone who diagnosed with cancer.

Advanced prostate cancer symptoms

The symptoms of the disease are more likely to occur when the disease at advanced stage. This is the most challenging for doctors, because the early warning signs that are more likely to not occur will increase the number of patients diagnosed with the disease at later stages.

Once the cancerous tumor is bigger in size and also spreads to nearby sites or even other distinct organs of the body, there will be more complications that can be generated. These may include:

Understanding n-years survival statistics

The major factors that affect the outlook of patients

General Prostate Cancer Survival Rate

According to the American Cancer Society:

• The relative 5-year survival rate is nearly 100%
• The relative 10-year survival rate is 98%
• The 15-year relative survival rate is 91%

Note: Relative survival rate means the percentage of patients who live amount of years after their initial diagnosis.

Keep in mind, however, that because the compiled list figures are of cancers diagnosed up to 15 years ago, you may have an even greater chance of survival than these indicate due to advances in prostate cancer treatment technology

Read Also: How Do They Test For Prostate Infection

Prostate Cancer Treatments How Long Can You Live With Prostate Cancer

The treatments for cancer will be determined after a diagnosis and staging is complete. There will be a lot of information to think about before discussing care alternatives with medical doctors. If an individual has been recently diagnosed, then many prostate cancer treatments are available.

ManagementBasic prostate cancer treatments imply the active surveillance of the cancer and wary waiting. Active surveillance is a care option that involves monitoring the cancer consuming specific blood tests and many ultrasounds.This is normally done at standard interims to determine if the cancer is flourishing. Wary waiting will be less intensive with evaluation and basing government decisions on the symptoms of the patient. The option to use any form of management technique is often done in early stages.

SurgeryA common medicine that is meant to medication cancer is surgery. This is often a medication alternative when the cancer is at the T1 or T2 stage and has not spread outside the gland. The most frequent type of surgery for cancer is announced revolutionary prostatectomy.In this activity, the surgeon is lifting the prostate gland along with some of the encircling material. There are many modes this action can be done; discussing options with your doctor will be a good thing.

Any prostate cancer treatments that are considered will take into account the current senility of the patient, lifespan anticipations, and the point or stage of the cancer.

Outlook For Men With Localised Prostate Cancer

Most localised prostate cancer is slow-growing and may not need treatment or shorten a mans life. For many men who have treatment for localised prostate cancer, the treatment will get rid of the cancer. For others, treatment may be less successful and the cancer may come back. If this happens, you might need further treatment.

Also Check: Does Enlarged Prostate Cause Constipation

Quality Of Life With Advanced Stage Prostate Cancer

Since Huggins and Hodges won a Nobel Prize in 1966 for their work describing the relationship between testosterone and prostate cancer, androgen deprivation has continued to be an important component in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. It is associated, however, with significant cost in terms of morbidity as well as economics. Side effects of androgen deprivation therapy include hot flashes, osteoporosis, loss of libido or impotence, and psychological effects such as depression, memory difficulties, or emotional lability. Recently Harle and colleagues reported insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, metabolic syndrome, and metabolic complications being associated with castration and thus being responsible for increased cardiovascular mortality in this population.

Because of the palliative nature of androgen ablation, quality of life is an important component of evaluating competing therapies. Intermittent androgen deprivation is one approach to hormonal therapy that has been developed with the aim of minimizing the negative effects of therapy while maximizing clinical benefits and the patients quality of life. It can be used in any clinical situation where continuous androgen deprivation treatment could be applied.

What Can Affect My Outlook

No one can tell you exactly what will happen. How prostate cancer affects you will depend on many things.

• Your stage  Whether your cancer is localised, locally advanced, or advanced.
• Your Gleason score or grade group  The higher your Gleason score, the more aggressive the cancer, and the more likely it is to spread.
• Your treatment options  You may be able to have treatment aimed at getting rid of the cancer. Or you may be able to have treatment to keep the cancer under control. Read more about choosing your treatment.
• Your health  If you have other health problems, you may have fewer treatment options. And you may be more likely to die from another condition, such as heart disease.
• Your PSA level  After youve been diagnosed, PSA tests are a good way of monitoring your prostate cancer and seeing how youre responding to treatment.
• How successful your treatment is  Your treatment may be successful at getting rid of your cancer or keeping it under control. But for some men, treatment may not work as well as expected.

Read Also: Can You Check Your Own Prostate

How To Make The Right Treatment Decision

Current expert guidelines for treatment of localized prostate carcinoma recommend potentially curative therapy for patients whose life expectancy is at least 10 years., Patients with limited life expectancy are more likely to die from health conditions other than prostate cancer. Men with a life expectancy of more than 10 years are more likely to die from progressive prostate cancer. This 10-year rule enjoys broad acceptance among urologists and radiation oncologists.,

Conservative management proved to be an acceptable treatment option for men with low-grade Gleason scores, clinically localized disease, and life expectancies of less than 10 years. Increasing age was described as a risk factor for receiving inadequate treatment for prostate cancer. Thus, older men have been shown to receive potentially curative therapy less often than younger men., Radical prostatectomy is preferred treatment in men younger than 70 years, whereas radiation therapy is applied predominantly in patients older than 70 years. Conservative therapy such as watchful waiting or androgen deprivation by luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone analogs is preferentially applied in men older than 80 years. Watchful waiting or hormonal therapy is used to treat 82% of men older than 80 years.

What Is Your Prostate Cancer Stage

Your prostate cancer stage is set after testing. Stage describes if the tumor was detected or felt during the digital rectal exam. The prostate cancer stage also indicates whether or not the cancer may have spread to lymph nodes or other organs. Clinical stage is based on all information available prior to any treatment and designated by the TNM system as shown below.

Also Check: Can No Sex Cause Prostate Problems

Prostate Cancer Survival Rates Are Favorable Overall

Thinking about survival rates for prostate cancer takes a little mental stretching. Keep in mind that most men are around 70 when diagnosed with prostate cancer. Over, say, five years, many of these men will die from other medical problems unrelated to prostate cancer.

To determine the prostate cancer survival rate, these men are subtracted out of the calculations. Counting only the men who are left provides what’s called the relative survival rate for prostate cancer.

Taking that into consideration, the relative survival rates for most kinds of prostate cancer are actually pretty good. Remember, we’re not counting men with prostate cancer who die of other causes:

• 92% of all prostate cancers are found when they are in the early stage, called local or regional. Almost 100% of men who have local or regional prostate cancer will survive more than five years after diagnosis.
• Fewer men have more advanced prostate cancer at the time of diagnosis. Once prostate cancer has spread beyond the prostate, survival rates fall. For men with distant spread of prostate cancer, about one-third will survive for five years after diagnosis.

Many men with prostate cancer actually will live much longer than five years after diagnosis. What about longer-term survival rates? According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, for men with local or regional prostate cancer:

• the relative 10-year survival rate is 98%
• the relative 15-year survival rate is 96%

What Is The Life Expectancy Of A Man With Prostate Cancer

The life expectancy of a man with prostate cancer is favorable. Most of the aged men detected of prostate cancer die of other comorbidities. The life expectancy is as follows:

• Almost 100% of men who have early-stage prostate cancer will survive more than 5 years after diagnosis.
• Men with advanced prostate cancer or whose cancer has spread to other regions have lesser survival rates. About one-third will survive for 5 years after diagnosis.

The longer-term survival rates for early-stage prostate cancer include:

• The relative 10-year survival rate is 98%.
• The relative 15-year survival rate is 96%.

Don’t Miss: Does Prostatitis Go Away Without Treatment

Untreated Prostate Cancer No Death Sentence

By Frederik Joelving, Reuters Health

4 Min Read

NEW YORK – Even without treatment, only a small minority of men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer die from the disease, Swedish researchers reported Friday.

Drawing from a national cancer register, they estimated that after 10 years prostate cancer would have killed less than three percent of these men.

What the data is showing is that for most patients with low-risk cancer, there is no need to panic, said Grace Lu-Yao, a cancer researcher who was not involved in the new study. Prostate cancer really is no longer a fatal disease.

With modern screening tests, said Lu-Yao, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick, many prostate cancers are found that might never have developed into serious disease. In such cases, the slight reduction of risk by surgically removing the prostate or treating it with radiation may not outweigh the substantial side effects of these treatments.

In the Swedish study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers compared deaths among more than 6,800 men with prostate cancer who underwent treatment — surgery or radiation — or were simply monitored regularly by their doctors, the so-called watchful waiting approach. With watchful waiting, patients are only treated if their cancer progresses.

The Swedish findings jibe with earlier results, including a large US study.

Treatments To Control And Prevent Further Cancer Spread In Patients With Castrate Refractory Advanced Prostate Cancer:

At BPC we offer:

• Hormones , Enzalutamide , Diethylstilboestrol)
• Chemotherapy .
• Radium-223

Other treatment options ongoing clinical studies:

• Autologous cellular immunotherapy, which is in late trial stage and although not currently available outside a trial setting in the UK, is likely to be licensed soon.
• Cabozantinib

Don’t Miss: Will A Blood Test Show Prostate Cancer

Most Patients Did Not Progress

With active surveillance, the patients had physical exams and PSA tests every six months, with biopsies recommended every one to two years.

Over an average of two and a half years of follow-up, 43 of the study participants showed evidence of cancer progression and received treatment.

In two patients, cancer spread beyond their prostate.

The study is published in the April issue of the Journal of Urology.

The findings support the idea that some men with prostate cancer may not need treatment, American Cancer Society Deputy Chief Medical Officer Len Lichtenfeld, MD, tells WebMD.

He says the addition of a second biopsy should help refine the search for men who are appropriate candidates for active surveillance, but he also agrees that the strategy of watchful waiting is not without its risks.

âThe real advance will be when we have tests that will tell us with a high degree of accuracy when treatment is needed and when it is not,â he says.

A great deal of research is being done to identify genetic tests or tumor markers that can do this, but Lichtenfeld says it will be years before these tests are validated.

Prostate Cancer Without Treatment

Eggener made it clear that not all prostatecancer patients with early-stage disease and a good prognosis are good candidates for active surveillance.

In the United States, one man in six will receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer during his lifetime, but a much smaller percentage — one in 35 — will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

Surgery and radiation therapy save lives, but they also carry the risk of serious long-term side effects, including incontinence, bowel problems, and sexual dysfunction.

âSome men may be rushing into treatment that wonât necessarily benefit them, prevent problems, or prolong life,â Eggener says. âClose observation in certain patients may maintain quality of life without increasing the chances of the cancer spreading.â

The newly reported study included 262 prostate cancer patients recruited from four treatment centers in the United States and Canada between 1991 and 2007.

All the men were younger than 75 at recruitment, with the average age being 64. All had early-stage, localized disease and all had the most favorable biological disease markers, including a prostate-specific antigen score of below 10 ng/mL and a Gleason score of 6 or below.

âWe feel that the second biopsy was an important step in identifying patients who are not good candidates for active surveillance,â Eggener says.

Read Also: Can You Give Yourself A Prostate Massage

Stages Of Prostate Cancer

In order to determine the stage of a patients prostate cancer, most doctors start by using the TNM staging system, which helps describe different aspects of the cancers growth.

• T the T category measures the size and extent of the Tumor
• N the N category measures whether and how far the cancer has spread to the Lymph Nodes
• M the M category whether the cancer has spread to other organs in the body (a process called Metastasis

The score for each of these categories is determined based on a pre-determined set of criteria. Your doctor cannot feel or see the tumor with a score of T1. A score of T3 means that the tumor has begun to grow outside of the prostate.

After calculating the TNM categories, doctors will combine the TNM score with the patients Gleason score and PSA levels assigning of a specific stage to the patients cancer.

Prostate cancer prognosis and survival rates can help give patients an idea of their chances of surviving the disease based on the stage and time of diagnosis. While some patients may find this information helpful, others may not want to know.

Your Cancer Care Team

People with cancer should be cared for by a multidisciplinary team . This is a team of specialists who work together to provide the best care and treatment.

The team often consists of specialist cancer surgeons, oncologists , radiologists, pathologists, radiographers and specialist nurses.

Other members may include physiotherapists, dietitians and occupational therapists. You may also have access to clinical psychology support.

When deciding what treatment is best for you, your doctors will consider:

• the type and size of the cancer
• what grade it is
• whether the cancer has spread to other parts of your body

Don’t Miss: What Is The Definition Of Prostate Gland

When Prostate Cancer Spreads Where It Goes Matters A Lot

And if the cancer progresses or spreads beyond his prostate? We can treat it then, Callaghan said.

The study shows that you have no business treating low-grade prostate cancer in someone with a life expectancy of less than 15 years because the side effects outweigh any benefits, said urological surgeon Dr. Peter Albertsen of the University of Connecticut Health. The Oxford scientists reported that 46 percent of men who had their prostate removed were using adult diapers six months later . Similarly, only 12 percent of men who got surgery and 22 percent who had radiation could sustain an erection, compared to 52 percent of the monitoring group.

An estimated 180,890 men in the US will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Some 26,120 will die of it in 2016, almost always because it has spread to a vital organ.

In an editorial accompanying the study, radiation oncologist Dr. Anthony DAmico of Brigham and Womens Hospital focused on the finding that men who opted for monitoring were more than twice as likely to develop metastatic prostate cancer. That is, malignant cells reached the bones, lung, liver, or brain.

Garnick agreed: The intermediate-risk men we would never assign to active monitoring. If the increased metastases came from these patients, it would explain those differences and even more strongly encourage the role of active management in truly low-risk prostate cancer.

What Is The Treatment For Advanced Prostate Cancer

No matter where prostate cancer spreads, its still treated as prostate cancer. Its harder to treat when it reaches an advanced stage.

Treatment for advanced prostate cancer involves targeted and systemic therapies. Most men need a combination of treatments and they may have to be adjusted from time to time.

Recommended Reading: How Do Doctors Check For Prostate Cancer