Q: My father is 81 and was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. His doctor is telling him that he shouldn’t do anything at all and just watch to see if the cancer progresses. He is in very good shape for his age, so I think he should be more aggressive. I researched on the internet and there seems to be a number of options, some don’t even seem so invasive. What do you think?
A: You are correct, there are many treatment options for prostate cancer. These include: surgery to remove the prostate cancer, radiation therapy, and cryotherapy, which is essentially burning the cancer cells. The last option, which your father’s doctors obviously think is best for him, is a wait and watch approach. The reason why this approach is used so frequently is that most forms of prostate cancer are very slow growing, and are frequently caught early, so they have not even spread locally. Sometimes it can be many years before these progress, and many men in their 80’s will have other medical issues much sooner than the time when the cancer progresses. So if your father’s doctors recommended this for him, it is probably his best option. You may want to ask them the exact stage of your fathers cancer, and why they think this is the best option.
To learn more about Prostate cancer, watch this video on VideoMD.com.
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