What are the current treatment options for localized prostate cancer?

Because not all prostate cancer is the same and not all are life threatening, it is important to understand the treatment options you choose should be very specific to your personal health history.  It is an individual decision that patients should make together with their doctor and their family. No one treatment is perfect for every man.
Several factors come into play when selecting the best treatment for an individual and they include:

• Tumor stage (extent of local spread) and grade (aggressiveness),
• PSA level (higher levels indicating a greater risk of cancer recurrence after treatment), and extent of disease (number of biopsy cores with cancer), as well as
• competing medical co-morbidities (other diseases that can affect life expectancy) and
• Age at diagnosis (as most prostate cancers take many years to become evident and cause morbidity, the same tumor in an older man may pose a lower risk of causing problems in his lifetime); all play a role in the decision regarding the choice of therapeutic intervention

It is important that you speak to your doctor about which treatment is right for you.
Below is a list of the common medical treatments for localized prostate cancer:

• Active Surveillance
• Surgery
• Radiotherapy
• Cryotherapy