Is prostate cancer curable in early stages? What are the best treatments for prostate cancer in early stages? How long can you live with untreated prostate cancer? What is Prostate Cancer (PCa) overtreatment?
If you have been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer (PCa) the four questions above may be on your mind. I am both long-term cancer survivor and cancer coach. I have been studying PCa for years and have worked with many PCa patients at various stages. PCa diagnosed early is a different animal from PCa diagnosed in the later stages. The patient’s decision-making is fundamentally different.
I have linked and excerpted studies below in order to illustrate my comments. I think it is essential for cancer patients to learn about evidenced-based therapies be they conventional (FDA) or non-conventional.
Is PCa curable in early stages? Studies show that almost all men over the age of 60 have cancer cells in their prostates. The word curable implies that the PCa in a man’s prostate will cause problems some day. The first study linked and excerpted below explains that there is a .9% difference in PCa mortality between men who undergo therapies for “curative intent” for PCa versus those men who did not. The study’s conclusion is that “A 10-year prostate cancer-specific mortality of 2.4% among patients with low-risk prostate cancer in the surveillance group indicates that surveillance may be a suitable treatment option for many patients with low-risk disease.”
What are the best treatments for PCa in early stages? For those men who choose active surveillance aka watchful waiting, there are many evidence-based, non-toxic therapies shown to be cytotoxic or cause apoptosis to PCa. The study about ellagic acid and PCa is one of many examples.
How long can you live with untreated prostate cancer? The key issue to answer this question is determining risk. And the best way to determine risk is a test called the Oncotype DX for Prostate Cancer.
Armed with your risk analysis you can then read the study below summarizing living without treating PSA detected PCa.
What is PCa overtreatment? The fourth and last study linked and excerpted below explains that despite changing treatment recommendations from doctors, newly diagnosed PCa patients with early-stage PCa may still be choosing to treat when active surveillance may be a better long-term decision.
Have you been diagnosed with prostate cancer? If so, what stage? What are your treatment priorities? What are your goals?
To Learn more about Low-Risk Prostate Cancer- read the posts linked below
As I mentioned in the beginning, I am a cancer coach. I work with cancer patients to present all possible therapies, both conventional (FDA approved) and evidence-based, non-conventional.
Scroll down the page to post a question or a comment. I will reply to you ASAP.
Thank you,
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
“Treatment for localized prostate cancer remains controversial. To our knowledge, there are no outcome studies from contemporary population-based cohorts that include data on stage, Gleason score, and serum levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)…
For the combination of low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancers, calculated cumulative 10-year prostate cancer-specific mortality was
- 3.6% in the surveillance group and
- 2.7% in the curative intent group.
For those with low-risk disease, the corresponding values were 2.4% among the 1085 patients in the surveillance group and 0.7% among the 1601 patients in the curative intent group.
The 10-year risk of dying from competing causes was
- 19.2% in the surveillance group and
- 10.2% in the curative intent group.
Conclusion- A 10-year prostate cancer-specific mortality of 2.4% among patients with low-risk prostate cancer in the surveillance group indicates that surveillance may be a suitable treatment option for many patients with low-risk disease.
“Abstract: There is currently a shifting focus towards finding natural compounds that may prevent or treat cancer, due to the problems that exist with current chemotherapeutic regimens. The fruit of the Punica granatum (pomegranate) contains hundreds of phytochemicals and pomegranate extracts have recently been shown to exhibit antioxidant properties, thought to be due to the action of ellagic acid, the main polyphenol in pomegranate. In this mini-review, the effects of pomegranate extracts and ellagic acid on the proliferation of prostate cancer cells and their future potential are discussed.”
Background
Making an informed decision about treating a prostate cancer detected following a routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test requires knowledge about disease natural history, such as the chances that it would have been clinically diagnosed in the absence of screening and that it would metastasize or lead to death in the absence of treatment.
Methods
We use three independently developed models of prostate cancer natural history to project risks of clinical progression events and disease-specific deaths for PSA-detected cases assuming they receive no primary treatment.
Results
The three models project that 20–33% of men have preclinical onset; of these 38–50% would be clinically diagnosed and 12–25% would die of the disease in the absence of screening and primary treatment. The risk that men under age 60 at PSA detection with Gleason score 2–7 would have been clinically diagnosed in the absence of screening is 67–93% and would die of the disease in the absence of primary treatment is 23–34%. For Gleason score 8–10 these risks are 90–96% and 63–83%.
Conclusions
“Risks of disease progression among untreated PSA-detected cases can be nontrivial, particularly for younger men and men with high Gleason scores. Model projections can be useful for informing decisions about treatment…”
“As some national guidelines now recommend against routine prostate cancer screening, the overall rate of men receiving treatment for the disease declined 42 percent, a new study finds…
The decline reflects efforts to decrease overdiagnosis and overtreatment — preventing some unnecessary treatments that can cause a long-term impact on quality of life, while still providing life-saving care to patients who need it.
But among those who are diagnosed, only 8 percent fewer are getting initial surgery or radiation treatments — even as data shows those with low-risk disease can substitute surveillance…
While screening recommendations became less-aggressive, so did attitudes toward treatment. But researchers found a more tempered response when they looked at treatment rates over time among those diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Some prostate cancers are so slow-growing that data suggests the risks of treatment may outweigh the benefits. Watchful waiting or active surveillance — which involve monitoring patients without delivering treatment — are options, especially for those patients with low-risk disease or limited life expectancy. By monitoring these patients, urologists can identify when treatment may become necessary…”
