Prostate cancer: control instead of surgery | Nachrichten.at

Patients diagnosed with prostate cancer are on average 61 years old. Every year around 5,000 men in Austria are confronted with this discovery. Often, then, the prostate has to be removed – a procedure that is mainly heavy for the patient. "But not all patients require immediate surgery, and if the cancer is low risk in extensive investigations, we often decide with the patient not to treat it immediately, but to monitor the tumor," explains Univ.- Teacher. Steffen Krause, director of the Department of Urology and Andrology at Kepler University Hospital in Linz.

This form of active surveillance is useful for patients without discomfort who have a small tumor restricted to the prostate and who have a low risk of progression of the disease.

Affected people stay in constant contact with their doctor and are monitored continuously. If the disease worsens, it can be treated immediately. As far as we know, the affected men do not present any inconvenience because of the postponement of the therapy, writes the German Center for Research on Cancer.

The benefit of active cancer surveillance: "Surgical treatment of prostate cancer can have side effects such as incontinence and impotence," says Steffen Krause, organizer of the conference's formation of the Austrian Society of Urology and Andrology, which took place last weekend in Linz.

We also talked about the future of prostate cancer treatment. "A relatively new approach is focal therapy, which aims to treat only the tumor itself and protect the surrounding tissues, thereby reducing the risk of side effects," Krause explains.

From 45 to provision

But not only surgery, even hormone therapy, often prescribed in prostate cancer, requires many men to create. "Because the artificial lowering of the bad hormone, testosterone, can have many side effects – ranging from hot flashes to weight gain, through enlargement of the mammary gland," Primus explains. Krause. Moreover, hormone therapy in patients with advanced prostate cancer provides an excellent opportunity to increase survival. "I just have a 98-year-old patient with many metastases before, and he can still live a good life through hormonal therapy."

All men over the age of 45 should be routinely screened for prostate cancer. If a close family man (father, brother or uncle) already suffers from prostate cancer, you should think about precaution sooner, that is, before the age of 40 years, because in this case, there is a risk of prostate cancer. , increases several times.

Despite much research, the real cause of prostate cancer is unclear. However, some risk factors favoring the development of prostate cancer are known. These include testosterone, a male bad hormone, old age, environmental factors, heredity and a high fat diet.

"back to health"