Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men worldwide, with an estimated 1,600,000 cases and 366,000 deaths a year worldwide. Despite advances, cancer is a disease of the prostate, which remains a major medical problem for affected men, with late diagnosis, overtreatment of a benign disease, and inadequate therapies for metastatic prostate cancer. Do you want to know more about prostate biopsy? Click here.
The stages of prostate cancer are multistep processes, beginning as prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN), followed by localized prostate cancer, and then locally invasive advanced prostate adenocarcinoma, culminating in metastatic prostate cancer.
Signs and symptoms
Early-stage prostate cancer usually does not cause symptoms. Symptoms of more advanced prostate cancer can sometimes be:
- Urination problems, including slow or weakened urinary flow or the need to urinate more often, especially at night.
- Blood in urine or semen.
- Difficulty getting an erection (erectile dysfunction).
- Pain in the hips, back (spine), chest (ribs), or other areas because the cancer has spread to the bones.
- Loss of bladder or bowel control due to cancer compressing the spinal cord.
If you notice any of the symptoms, see a health professional.
Treatments
Treatment of prostate cancer depends on the grade, stage, and age, and ranges from active surveillance to a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Radiation therapy and partial or radical organ removal are the most common treatments, with procedure-related side effects ranging from 3.2% to 31% for urinary incontinence and 58% to 79% for erectile dysfunction. These side effects can seriously affect quality of life. Active surveillance is appropriate for low-risk prostate cancer. Intermediate-risk patients are usually offered active treatment, but regret for treatment has been reported in about 15%, especially due to abnormal urinary and sexual function.
Targeted cancer treatment
The ablation aims to keep the oncological benefit of active treatment options and reduce the risk of side effects by preserving the non – cancerous tissue. The anatomical situation of the prostate makes it an organ accessible by different routes ( transurethral , transperineal , transrectal , suprapubic ), which is why it has always been an attractive organ to apply, what we can generically call, minimally invasive ablative treatments.
These are procedures that are intended to achieve the eradication of the disease with fewer possible side effects and allowing the conservation of the organ in question.
Cryoablation : Cold ablation shows some benefits over other treatments used in prostate cancer. It respects neighboring structures, blood loss is minimal and represents an alternative in those patients not suitable for surgery or radiotherapy.
Irreversible Electroporation : Ablation with electrical impulses has demonstrated safety, feasibility. Low side effects, free of metastasis and 100% survival.
We are Grupo CRYO, a company specialized in fighting cancer.