Radiation therapy for prostate cancer

Radiation therapy also called radiotherapy, uses high-energy rays to shrink tumors and stop cancer cells from growing. Like surgery, it's local therapy-that is, it affects only the cells in the treated area.
There are several kinds of radiation therapy. All are administered by a radiologist or radiation oncologist (a subspecialist in radiology who deals specifically with radiation therapy and cancer), who plan and supervise the treatment. The more common is external-beam radiotherapy, in which a machine aims rays at the tumor and the pelvic area.
External-beam radiotherapy may produce side effects such as diarrhea, cramping, and intestinal ulcers, all of which typically clear up within weeks after treatment ends.
Radiation therapy usually causes fatigue, and the kinds of therapy used in prostate cancer are no exception. Unlike other forms of radiation, though, radiation for prostate cancer doesn't have nausea or burns among its side effects. With external-beam radiation, the skin over the target area may turn red or become dry. But because the radiation is aimed precisely, patient don't get burns, hair loss, or nausea that often result when other parts of the body are irradiated. And there's no indication that it causes other tumors to develop.

Another kind of radiation therapy is delivered internal by radioactive material that's implated as "seeds" or "pellets" in and around the prostate. Internal radiation therapy is also known as brancytherepy or interstitial radiation therapy.
There is a growing variety of implants. Some are left in place permanently, while others are removed after they've served their purpose. The kind of tumor determines the choice of implant.
The seeds can be injected through needles with the help of ultrasound or by means of an open procedure ( a surgery that involves an incision)-either suprapubic or retropubic.
How long you're sequestered depends on the half-life of the implant (the length of time that it's highly radioactive). Once the radioactivity wears off, however, you don't need to worry about exposing others. Men with permanent implants can have sexual intercourse with no risk to their partners.
Choosing between the different forms of radiation and then making a further choice among the various implants is a highly complicated decision that ultimately must be left to the experts. It depends primary on the kind of tumor that's being treated.
Researchers reported an excellent survival rate for men who had the combined therapies.
Some men may have reasons-aside from tumor type-to choose one radiation therapy over the other. Not everybody can use implants. It's out of the question for a man whose rectum has been removed, because the prostate probe has to be placed through the rectum. Men can't have implants if they have large prostates or have had prior prostate surgery and don't have enough tissue to hold the seeds.
As with radical prostatectomy, there is no guarantee that radiation therapy will completely eradicate your cancer. Residual cancer is microscopic tumors found by biopsy several months after the treatment. This does't mean that the tumor has recurred but rather that cells were left behind when the prostate was removed.
Residual cancer is not necessarily fatal. While failure to "cure" can be fatal in other cancers, it's not at all clear how dangerous it is in the case of prostate cancer.
Because the radiation therapy for prostate cancer cannot be directed perfectly, they may damage both cancerous and healthy cells nearby. If the dose of radiation is small and spread over time, the cancer cells die while the healthy cells are able to recover and survive.

Prostate cancer vaccines

Most people think of vaccines as protection against diseases such as measles,mumps, and polio. But researchers are giving the word vaccine a whole new meaning as they look for ways to jump-start men's immune systems in the fight against advanced prostate cancer.
The prostate vaccine is not a vaccine in the true sense. It's often referred to as such because it boosts a cancer patient's immune response against the disease and because it is administered in a series of injections.
Here's how it works. One of the problems associated with treating cancer is that the immune system doesn't recognize the cancerous cells as the enemy. Instead of attacking tumor cells, the immune system's defenses treat them as a natural part of the body. With the prostate cancer vaccine, specialized white blood cells called dendritic cells are drawn fromthe body and treated in the laboratory so that they become sensitive to malignant cells.Then the dendritic cells are injected back into the body, where they launch an attack on the cancer.
The vaccine is currently being designed for use by men with advanced prostate cancer that hasn't responded to other forms of treatment and by those whose prostate cancer has returned after being treated. Eventually, however, researchers hope the vaccine will become a primary form of treatment for the disease.

Safety in the hospital

While in the hospital, you are at risk of acquiring a condition you did not have when you went in-called iatrogenic disease(iatrogenic is from the greek, meaning"doctor-caused" or "doctor-produced").
One form of iatrogenesis is nosocomial infection. Acquired during hospitalization, nosocomial infections are produced by microorganisms that dwell within hospitals. In other words, you don't have the infection when you check in; you get it while you are there. Not only do such infections jeopardize your recovery, but the cost of their treatment may increase your hospital bill. To help prevent infections:

• Try to make sure that all hospital personel who come in contact with you have washed their hands. If you so desire, ask them to do so in your room, in your presence. You can greatly lower your chances of catching an infection-and paying for its treatment.
• if your roommate becomes infected or if you are concerned that what he has could possibly be transmitted to you via the air or through the use of a common bathroom, ask your doctor about your risks.
• If you are undergoing surgery or a procedure that requires the removal of hair, refuse to be shaven the night before surgery. One study indicates that among people shaved the day prior to their operations, the nosocomial infection rate was 5.6 percent. Chemical depilatories reduce the rate to just 0.6 percent. Using barber clippers to remove hair the morningof surgery yields a low infection rate too.
• Have nurses regularly check the drainage of urinary catheters to help you maintain cleanliness.

Define hospital safety index is a new form of risk management in the health sector. Allow facilities level sports sports coverage of health to monitor from time to time.

Radical prostatectomy surgical procedure

A radical prostatectomy is major surgery in which the entire prostate gland and seminal vesicles are removed.
A radical prostatectomy is a complicated operation that takes a few hours. After the prostate is removed, the urinary tractis essentially reconstructed. The bladder is brought down into the pelvis, and the bladder neck is stitched to the stump of the urethra at the point where the prostate gland was detached from it. This bridges the gap where the prostate had been and reestablishes the lower urinary tract.
There are two different approaches to a radical prostatectomy, one is retropubic, approaching the prostate from behind and under the pubic bone. The other is perineal, approaching the prostate through the perineum (the space between the scrotum and the anus).
That's not possible during a perineal prostatectomy, so a prostate cancer patient may need two separate procedures several days apart: an abdominal incision to check out his lymph nodes and a perineal incision to remove his prostate.
The recovery is harder, because an abdominal incision is considerably more uncomfortable than a perineal incision.
Recovery may be difficult after a radical prostatectomy. There's considerable pain immediately afterward. You will have bladder spasms and, because your intestine isn't contracting normally at first, you'll have a tube draining your abdomen for a few days. A foley catheter, is inserted through your penis and into your bladder after the operation. When the catheter is removed, you may be some what incontinent for several weeks or even months.
One complication that isn't likely to bother most men with prostate cancer, but should be noted for the record, is that men are permanently sterile after radical prostatectomies. This is because removal of the entire prostate gland, including the prostatic urethra, eliminates any place that the sperm can be deposited. So as part of the operation, the vas deferens are tied off.

Treament of prostate cancer

The main treatment options for prostate cancer are surgery(usually a procedure called a radical prostatectomy),radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, and various combinations of all three.
Radical prostatectomies and radiation therapy are considered curative therapies, meaning that they may be capable of destroying the cancer altogether.Hormonal therapy is palliative; it can reduce the symptoms of the disease and slow its growth, but hormone therapy doesn't wipe it out.
Nontreatment is also an option-a very important one for many men. Because of their slow growth, some small, early stage prostate cancers may not require treatment, especially if they're in men who are older or who have other serious illnesses. Other prostate cancers may be so far advanced that any treatment other than pain management may be useless and even cause suffering.
Once you've been diagnosed with prostate cancer, you will need to make decisions on what treatment is best for you. The kind of treatment you receive should depend on the stage of your disease, your age, and your overall condition. You should keep in maid that there's uncertainty, even within the medicall profession, about which treatments are most appropriate for various forms of prostate cancer.
If you find all this uncertainty disturbing, remember that it's generating a lot of work by researchers to both causes and treatment of prostate cancer and their findings may ultimately benefit you.

prostate cancer diagnostic tests

There is uncertainty and controversy about the benefits of routine screening for prostate cancer outweigh the risks for most men. Part of the problem in diagnosing prostate cancer is that the lack of early symptoms makes it hard to detect before it has spread. Another problem, according to the medical establishment, is that men don't show up dutifully for their annual digital rectal exams.
Even if they did, it might not be worth the trip. This is because the results of early-detection programs have been so disappointing, in terms of finding curable tumors, that some leading members of the medical community have concluded that mass screenings may not be worthwhile.
Although there's an ongoing effort to refine the screening methods for prostate cancer, the tests-as well as the treatment-are all highly problematic.
There are two standard tests are used for early detection of prostate cancer:

• Digital rectal examination (DRE).
• The prostate specific antigen(PSA) test.

Digital Rectal Examination
The historical view has been that rectal exams are a highly reliable means of catching most prostate cancers before they spread. Unfortunately, there's a growing body of evidence to the contrary. Study have shown that most patients have advanced diseases by the time they are diagnosed by digital rectal exam. This might be because tumors that are small and confined to the prostate may be hard to detect by rectal exam. Another major reason is that many of the cancers start on the far side of the prostate, opposite the rectum, so they can not be felt. The researchers suggested that if the digital rectal exam were performed more frequently than once a year, more of this aggressive cancer might be detected.

Prostate-Specific Antigen(PSA) test
Prostate-specific antigen is a glycoprotein enzyme produced almost exclusively by the prostate and detectable in all men who have prostates and normal levels of testosterone. The PSA test is generally better at detecting prostate cancer than a rectal exam. PSA twice as accurate the digital rectal exam in finding cancer. In fact, the PSA test might be able to indicate cancer before there's a palpable lump in the prostate. The PSA test is a sensitive diagnostic tool. However, it's so sensitive, the PSA test may give the wrong answer.PSA test results are often false negatives-that is, they are normal even if cancer is present.

A combination of digital rectal exam and PSA test may be used to help diagnose prostate cancer with more success than the sum of parts-that is, that each test can detect tumors the other two may overlook and eliminate a number of the false-positive results or at least add more informasion to the diagnosis. Positive results for either screen will lead to further prostate cancer diagnostic tests.

Prostate Cancer Prevention

Prostate cancer prevention is an action would onset of prostate cancer. We would like to suggest some foods that may prevent prostate cancer and healthy lifestyles that can reduce the causes of prostate cancer.
Several studies have identified the link between fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins A and C can reduce prostate cancer inciden. A diet containing beta carotene seemed to lower the risk for men under age 69 (but didn't affect older men). Beta carotene is found in dark green leafy vegetables such as broccoli and spinach and in deep yellow and orange vegetables and fruits such as carrots and cantaloupe, as well as in vitamin supplements. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant and studies have shown that a diet rich in tomatoes may reduce the risk of prostate cancer.
According to the study found that men with the highest intakes of selenium had significantly lower risk of prostate cancer than those who had the lowest intakes of the mineral. Additional studies are necessary to confirm this conclusion. Selenium can be found in broccoli, mushrooms, cabbage, celery, cucumber, onions, garlic, radishes, brewer's yeast, grains, fish, and organ meats such as liver.
Lately some researchers have hypothesized that vitamin D may also be effective against prostate cancer. It's found in vitamin D-enriched milk, fish-liver oil, salmon, tuna, sardines, egg yolks, and margarine and in vitamin supplements. Of course, the major source of vitamin D is sunlight.
Lifestyle factors, such as promiscuity, have also been considered by researchers as risk factors for prostate cancer. There's been speculation that untreated sexually transmitted diseases or cigarret smoking may also increase risk. But no factor has been linked to prostate cancer the way diet has.
Regular exersice has been shown to reduce the risk of prostate cancer. It's not clear why exercise seems to help. One possible explanation is that increased physical activity may lower the level of testosterone, a primary suspect for prostate cancer. Of course, exercise can also help you control your weight, and that may be a factor in prostate cancer mortality.
Prostate cancer prevention through regular exersice and diet, lifestyle on your seriousness and need support from people around you.