If you have been diagnosed with prostate cancer, take your time to consider different treatment options. The tumour itself takes years to grow, so you have time to thoroughly explore your treatment options, you don’t have to make a decision in a single day.
Your overall chances of recovery depend primarily on the stage of your disease. Therefore, it is important not to postpone the treatment, but on the other hand, it is necessary to remember that your decision about the type of treatment you will undergo will significantly affect the rest of your life.
In prostate cancer treatment, adverse effects may vary considerably for various treatments.
We have compared for you the side effects of the most common medical procedures in the Czech Republic – surgery and photon irradiation. Decide which method of treatment is most suitable for you.
With proton therapy, you have the highest chance of recovery from the disease and the lowest risk of side effects compared to other treatment options, surgery or photon radiation.
Radical prostatectomy is a major surgery that consists in removing the entire prostate. According to the type of surgical approach, we distinguish between classical approach and mini-invasive methods, i.e. removal of prostate cancer either by laparoscopic or robotic surgery.
During surgery, the prostate is removed together with the prostate capsule and seminal vesicles, and a new connection is created between the urethra and the bladder. That is why a tube (catheter) is subsequently inserted through the urethra into the bladder and remains there for a period of two to six weeks.
Although surgical procedures evolve (and robotic surgery is a good example of this), long-term results show that the risks persist. Surgery is always associated with hospitalisation and subsequent sick leave.
Complications after any surgical procedures are classified as early (during surgery or immediately after surgery) and late (during follow-up or longer lasting). Early risks and complications after surgery include pain, bleeding, infection, pulmonary embolism, etc.
Up to 15% of patients have to use some type of incontinence aid after surgery.
One of the common consequences of surgery is, e.g., the inability to ejaculate semen due to incision of the ejaculatory ducts.
Erectile dysfunction after radical prostatectomy occurs in 30–100% of patients
Up to 35% of men operated on must undergo post-operative radiation due to recurrence of the disease within 10 years after surgery.
In such a case, the risks of side effects and complications associated with radiation are added to the risk of complications caused by surgery.
Radiotherapy (radiation treatment) is an important and effective method in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer It is an alternative to surgery. Radiation treatment is generally carried out in two ways, external radiotherapy, when the radiation source is outside the patient’s body, or brachytherapy, when the radiation source is applied through the skin in the form of radioactive seeds directly into the prostate affected by cancer.
The vast majority of prostate cancer patients treated with radiation undergo external radiotherapy. Photon or proton beams can be used for external radiotherapy.
Proton radiotherapy is a highly effective, precise, and gentle cancer treatment with minimal side effects. By precisely targeting the proton beam at the tumour, the occurrence of undesirable side effects is greatly reduced. This means that proton therapy gives patients a chance to live a good life after cancer treatment.
The typical photon beam goes through the body and emits a significant portion of its energy in regions in front of and behind the tumour. However, protons have a physical property called the Bragg peak. Due to this property, protons give up significantly less energy on their way to the tumour, and this energy has no impact on the tissues behind the tumour.
In photon irradiation, photons are used to irradiate the tumour. Unlike proton radiation, photons transfer their energy already on their way to the tumour.
They do not stop there, but continue on through the body, causing unwanted radiation to healthy tissues and organs in the surrounding of the tumour.
Photon irradiation is thus associated with many complications related to the unwanted irradiation of surrounding healthy tissues and organs located in the immediate vicinity of the irradiated tumour.
