How Prostate Cancer Is Treated
In cancer care, different types of doctorsincluding medical oncologists, surgeons, and radiation oncologistsoften work together to create an overall treatment plan that may combine different types of treatments to treat the cancer. This is called a multidisciplinary team. Cancer care teams include a variety of other health care professionals, such as palliative care experts, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, oncology nurses, social workers, pharmacists, counselors, dietitians, physical therapists, and others.
The common types of treatments used for prostate cancer are described below. Your care plan may also include treatment for symptoms and side effects, an important part of cancer care.
Treatment options and recommendations depend on several factors, including the type and stage of cancer, possible side effects, and the patients preferences and overall health.
Cancer treatment can affect older adults in different ways. More information on the specific effects of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy on older patients can be found another section of this website.
Because most prostate cancers are found in the early stages when they are growing slowly, you usually do not have to rush to make treatment decisions. During this time, it is important to talk with your doctor about the risks and benefits of all your treatment options and when treatment should begin. This discussion should also address the current state of the cancer:
Diagnostic Advances In Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer diagnosis is followed by staging of the cancer. If theres no evidence of metastasis of the original prostate tumor, meaning the cancer hasnt spread to other parts of the body, your cancer will also be assigned to a risk stratification group, also known as a risk group. The risk group attempts to predict the likelihood that the disease has spread microscopically outside the prostate. We informally refer to three risk groups: low risk, intermediate risk and high risk, although as many as six different groups exist.
The specific stage and/or risk stratification of your cancer may determine your treatment options. In general:
Depending on your specific diagnosis, you may have two or more good treatment choices that have similar outcomes, and you probably have time to investigate those options.
Recent areas of advancement in oncology may provide a more accurate picture of your specific diagnosis, directing you and your doctor to more appropriate treatment options. Two specific developments include prostate-specific PET scan agents that may allow us to get more accurate imaging than we could before and the results of advanced genomic testing, which may help identify more aggressive cancers that are less suitable for active surveillance.
Active Surveillance For Prostate Cancer
Active surveillance is a plan to monitor low and some intermediate-risk, localized prostate cancer. If, among other criteria, your cancer has not spread beyond the prostate, is not causing symptoms and does not show signs that it may be aggressive, active surveillance may be an appropriate option for you.
Why would you consider active surveillance over immediate, more aggressive treatment like surgery or radiation therapy? It comes down to carefully weighing risks versus quality of life.
We know that, in most men, prostate cancer grows slowly. In some cases, it may take three to 10 years to reach the point where it needs to be treated. In the meantime, if you can safely postpone treatment, you can avoid the sometimes-immediate and long-term side effects that may have serious consequences on your quality of life.
Having access to some of the advances in prostate cancer treatment discussed earlier in this article may allow you to choose active surveillance with more confidence. For example, if genomic testing predicts that your cancer is not aggressive, and/or a prostate-specific PET scan finds no evidence of cancer cells outside of the prostate, active surveillance may be the right choice for you.
Active surveillance does not mean that we ignore the cancer. If you and your care team decide its an appropriate option for you, your urologist will monitor your disease with regular follow-ups, which may include:
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Introduction Of T Cells
There have 2 populations of T lymphocyte, T cells, T cells. They are distinguished by the expression of either an T-cell receptor or a TCR. T cells are a small population of lymphocytes, accounting for 0.5%5% of overall T lymphocytes and have variable tissue distribution in the body. T cells have been revealed to play a pivotal role in cancer progression through innate or adaptive immune responses. As innate immune cells, T cells can recognize tumor cells independently of human leukocyte antigen restriction and quickly produce abundant cytokines and potent cytotoxicity in response to malignancies. Besides, T cells also can promote the activation of adaptive immune cells by secreting a variety of cytokines, against tumor cells. Due to these features, T cells have been exploited as attractive candidates for the development of new cellular therapy for the treatment of various types of tumors. T cells have been indicated powerful anti-tumor efficacy on breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, leukemia, and others.
Fig.1 Pro- and antitumor effect of T cells.
Advances In Targeted Therapy
PARP inhibitors are a type of targeted therapy drug designed to prevent the DNA of cancer cells from repairing the damage caused by cancer treatment. In May 2020, the FDA approved two PARP inhibitors, rucaparib and olaparib, to treat patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer whose cancer tumors have certain homologous recombination repair genetic mutations and who meet other treatment-related criteria. These drugs are the first of their type to be approved by the FDA to treat prostate cancer.
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What Is Dendritic Cell Therapy
Although Dendritic cells were discovered in the 19th century, it was only at the beginning of the 21st century that their role in adaptive immunity was discovered. Ralph M. Steinman understood that the primed dendritic cells were capable of detecting and destroying malignant cancer cells in the body and for his work he was awarded the Nobel prize in Medicine in 2011.
What Do You Think Have Been Some Of The Top Advances In Prostate Cancer Discovery Over The Past Several Years
Over the past several years, I would say, as we mentioned, better imaging, particularly the utilization of PSMA tracers for PET imaging, has been a big advance. The second big advance in the localized disease setting and now somewhat in the more advanced disease setting is the use of genomics and genetics, specifically molecular tests like Decipher that give you better prognostic risk and having that guide you to treatment decisions. In the advanced setting, the biggest things have been understanding that combinatorial therapies upfront using androgen deprivation therapy, but also another androgen signaling inhibitorperhaps even with chemotherapy in some casescan improve overall survival. And then in the castrate-resistant setting, there is also the use of genetics to guide therapies like PARP inhibitors. Finally, there is the use of the PSMA as a radioligand to deliver therapeutics like lutetium PSMA. That’s been mostly showing efficacy so far in later-stage disease in trials, but it’s being trialed now in earlier-stage disease where I think the impact will be even greater what I mean is earlier treatment lines.
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Research Into Hormone Therapy
Prostate cancer depends on the male hormone testosterone for its growth. Hormone therapies block or lower the levels of testosterone. You might have it to lower the risk of your cancer coming back after treatment or to shrink or slow the growth of prostate cancer.
Researchers are looking into:
- the best time to have hormone therapy
- having hormone therapy in combination with other treatments
Car T Therapy For Solid Tumors
The idea of training the bodys own immune system to fight cancer has percolated throughout the cancer landscape for years now. Dorff is especially excited about the promise of CAR T treatment: taking a patients immune, or T cells, reengineering them to recognize specific tumor-associated antigens and then reintroducing them as supercharged cancer killers.
Dorff calls the progress in CAR T therapy profound and revolutionary. The Food and Drug Administration has approved two CAR T products for blood cancers.
But solid tumors, including prostate cancer, present special challenges.
Unlike say, leukemia cells, which are fairly uniform, solid tumors are packed with a wide variety of different cells, which means a one-size-fits-all CAR T cell targeting one specific protein cant mount much of an attack. Also, tumors often display an immunosuppressant microenvironment which can counter the punch of a CAR T onslaught. Finally, theres the problem of toxicity. Some of the proteins targeted by CAR T cells also exist in healthy tissue.
Dorff is heavily immersed in research and clinical trials to address all these concerns.
We need to find a way to get the CAR T cells into the tumor with the right amount and find a way to kill tumor cells with different expressions, she said. And we need to reduce toxicity and the immunosuppressant response.
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Just One Weapon Against Cancer
Before treatment with PLUVICTOTM is recommended, patients undergo a to determine if their tumor contains the PSMA target. If it does not, PLUVICTOTM would not be appropriate, explained Dr. Wong. At Duke we treat you as an individual. Each case is discussed among a multidisciplinary team of surgeons, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, radiologists, and nuclear medicine specialists. He emphasized that PLUVICTOTM is not for everyone and is just one weapon in the arsenal for fighting cancer. Our team will determine how and if this new option fits in with all the others we offer.
Duke can provide PLUVICTOTM and other novel treatments because it is a Comprehensive Cancer Center with the latest advances in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer. Duke is also recognized as a Comprehensive Radiopharmaceutical Therapy Center of Excellence, which requires strict adherence to safety and treatment criteria that ensures the best care for patients.
How Does Immunotherapy Work
Since 2014, Immucura has been helping patients to fight cancer with the most advanced scientific breakthroughs in Cancer Health. Immunotherapies have proven to be a very effective, minimally non-invasive weapon against cancer. They are the key elements in Immucuras integrative approach. Immucura is specialised in Dendritic Cell Therapy , as well as Macrophage Activation Therapy , Natural Killer Cell Therapy and Nanothermia. We also offer blood analysis, nutritional advice, targeted supplementation and other complementary treatments.
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Biggest Breakthroughs In Advanced Prostate Cancer Treatment
by Health Writer
Prostate cancer is most often diagnosed at an early and highly treatable stagebut if youre one of the men with advanced-stage prostate cancer at diagnosis, youre in a club whose numbers have risen in the last decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Thankfully, advancements in prostate cancer research have led to promising improvements in treatment possibilities for this club. We spoke to the experts to learn more about breakthroughs that are changing the treatment game in prostate cancer.
Duke Cancer Center Offers New Treatment For Metastatic Prostate Cancer
Terence Wong, MD, PhD, and Stacy Wood, a Duke Health nuclear medicine technologist, provides treatment to a patient.
Men with advanced metastatic prostate cancer that has not responded to other treatments may now benefit from a new radiopharmaceutical treatment called PLUVICTOTM . Duke is one of the first cancer centers in the Southeastern region to offer PLUVICTOTM following its FDA approval in March 2022. Studies show it can extend the lives of people with this aggressive form of prostate cancer, even in the late stages, said Terence Wong MD, PhD, a nuclear radiologist at Duke Health.
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Personalized Clinical Trials For Prostate Cancer
Research is uncovering more information about the genetic changes that happen as prostate cancers develop and progress. Although early-stage prostate cancer has relatively few genetic changes compared with other types of cancer, researchers have learned that metastatic prostate cancers usually accumulate more mutations as they spread through the body.
These mutations may make men with metastatic prostate cancers candidates for what are called basket clinical trials of new drugs. Such trials enroll participants based on the mutations found in their cancer, not where in the body the cancer arose. In the NCI-MATCH trial, a high percentage of enrolled men with advanced prostate cancer had mutations that could potentially be targeted with investigational drugs.
Fda Approves New Imaging Tool To Find Advanced Prostate Cancer
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new imaging agent to detect prostate cancer after it has spread to other parts of the body.
Experts say the tracer, made by medical imaging company Lantheus, will give doctors an important visual aid to guide them to metastatic prostate cancer cells that, before now, were difficult to spot.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men in the United States, after lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. More than 34,000 men die of the disease every year.
When prostate cancer spreads, it often goes into the bones, said Dr. Michael Morris, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. That makes it difficult to detect using traditional imaging techniques.
“It’s really hard to take pictures of what’s going on inside of bone,” Morris said, adding that traditional scans tend to find problems in the tissue surrounding bones, after damage has already been done.
“Now we don’t have to wait for that,” Morris said, who was involved with clinical trials of the tracer. “We can detect it much more clearly and much earlier than we could before.”
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Services At Creative Biolabs
T cell therapy has shown promising results in the treatment of liver cancer, but the therapy is still in its early stage. The efficacy and safety of T cell therapy need to be fully investigated in the future. If you have any problems on the way of developing T cell therapy, please directly contact us, Creative Biolabs will provide you with a full range of services, including but not limited to:
- Preparation of T cells: somatic recombination of the TRG and TRD gene sites of T cells is carried out to produce functional TCR surface receptors.
- Preparation of CAR- T cells: V9V2T cells are usually used as carriers because of their higher abundance in peripheral blood and easier in vitro engineering, so that these newly introduced receptors can be expressed for a long time.
- Preparation of TEGs : reprogramming CD4+ and CD8T+ cells by specific V9V2TCR.
References
Prostate Cancer: Treatment Advances You Should Know About
Prostatectomy is one of the most common treatments for prostate cancer. If your doctor has recommended this surgery, you may have many questions, including:
- What does the surgery entail?
- Will I need more treatment after surgery?
As one of the most experienced prostate cancer treatment centers in the world, The Johns Hopkins Hospitals dedicated urology team performed nearly 600 robotic prostatectomy procedures in 2015. Heres what Johns Hopkins urologist Mohamad Allaf, M.D., wants you to know
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Advances In Surgery For Prostate Cancer
A radical prostatectomy, the surgical removal of the prostate, may be a treatment option for localized prostate cancer. Common short- and long-term side effects of the surgery include erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence.
Robot-assisted surgery is a minimally invasive alternative to open surgery for a radical prostatectomy. This system requires only a few small incisions in the abdomen rather than the larger incisions required for open surgery. The systems instrumentation and high-definition camera allow for greater surgical precision and the improved ability to spare surrounding tissue and nerves.
While robotic surgery may not improve long-term disease control, studies show its benefits may include a lower risk of infections or complications, less loss of blood during surgery, less scarring, shorter hospital stays, a faster recovery time and a reduction in the severity and duration of erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence.
Why Choose Immucuras Dendritic Cell Therapy
The effectivity of DCT is supported by a unique personalized medical program for 6 months:
- Immucura Blood Profile: a panel of cancer, immune and vitality markers
- a starter kit including tailor-made IMT, non-invasive medication and supplements for immediate activity
- adjusted to the Immucura Blood Profile provision of individualized IMT, non-invasive medication and supplements for a total of 6 months
- expert surveillance for 6 months, including health and lifestyle recommendations, analysis of Immucura Blood Profile and external medical reports medical consultations and access to mental support, nutrition therapies, physiotherapies, integrative treatments
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Studying Early Detection For Men At High Risk
Men with certain inheritedgenetic traits are at increased risk for developing prostate cancer. Examples of such traits include inherited BRCA gene mutations and Lynch syndrome. No clear guidelines exist for when or howor ifto screen men at high genetic risk for prostate cancer.
NCI researchers are using magnetic resonance imaging of the prostate in men at high risk to learn more about how often and how early these cancers occur. Theyre also testing whether regular scans in such men can detect cancers early, before they spread elsewhere in the body .
Treating Prostate Cancer That Has Spread To The Bones
Doctors are studying the use of radiofrequency ablation to help control pain in men whose prostate cancer has spread to one or more areas in the bones. During RFA, the doctor uses a CT scan or ultrasound to guide a small metal probe into the area of the tumor. A high-frequency current is passed through the probe to heat and destroy the tumor. RFA has been used for many years to treat tumors in other organs such as the liver, but its use in treating bone pain is still fairly new. Still, early results are promising.
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