Prostate cancer treatment abroad without surgery and NHS waiting list! Now it is possible. Prostate cancer is often aggressive and continues unnoticed expansion after the prostatectomy or complete prostate removal. When taking repeated PSA exams after the surgery, sometimes it is discovered that the cancer has managed to expand beyond the prostate in patient’s body into pelvic lymph nodes or metastases in pelvic bones. Physicians call it oligometastatic prostate cancer or prostate cancer with isolated proximal metastases. The available contemporary therapy methods vary — repeated surgery, conventional radiotherapy by radiating the entire pelvis, chemotherapy, including hormone therapy, which has many adverse side effects and to which a resistance develops with time, as well as the newest method which has proved itself in the world — radiosurgery.
Now NHS allows you to bypass the NHS queue for cancer treatment without surgery, by reimbursing costs of treatment without surgery, if you received in private treatment abroad.
The new strategy for treatment of oligometastatic prostate cancer would be as follows: if there is biochemical recurrence after the radical prostatectomy and PSA starts increasing once again, it is important to detect the location of the recurrence. Therefore PET/CT to determine the location of malignant cells. Afterwards, on the basis of the exam results, physicians decide on the method to apply in further treatment — be it radiosurgery, conventional surgery or combination of the two.
What is prostate cancer treatment abroad without surgery?
Radiosurgical cancer treatment without surgery is based on a precision beam therapy which aims at damaging DNA of a cancer cell that regulates all activities of the cell. When DNA is damaged, the cell lives for a while, but then it perishes and absorbs, sometimes remains as sclerotic tissue. It may happen not at once, the cells go on living some more time and they might even divide. In case of a metastatic prostate cancer it is worth doing the control 3 to 6 months after the radiosurgery sessions.
How many sessions of radiosurgical treatments are required ?
Potentially better effect is gained if higher doses are delivered in fewer sessions. But it is important to take into account that the surrounding tissues sometimes restrict treatment plan. If a nodus is located far from the crucial tissues, it is possible to deliver high-dose radiation in a single session; no therapy is needed afterwards and the patient is healed. If lymph nodes in the pelvis, intestines are located rather close and it is dangerous to deliver the entire dose in a single session, because it can cause burns, ulcers in the intestines. The therapy is usually divided into 3 fractions or sessions. Nevertheless, each prostate cancer treatment case is assessed individually.
Benefits in the treatment of prostate cancer without surgical intervention
- Impotence – after radiosurgery treatment only small percentage of men can experience some loss of potency – and it can be easy treated with use of medication.
- Urinary dysfunction – side effects may be similar to classic prostate surgery, but in most cases they are lighter and wear off quicker
- Fertility – for men who wish to father children after treatment for prostate cancer, the best chance for fertility is sperm banking. Fertility after prostatectomy is irreversible, in other hand some IVF treatments can be used after radiotherapy prostate cancer treatment.
- Chemotherapy/ hormone therapy – treatment of prostate cancer without surgical intervention using radiotherapy dose not require chemotherapy/ hormone therapy.
Prostate cancer treatment abroad without surgery can be covered by NHS and can be refunded, treatment received abroad. Prostate cancer treatment abroad without surgery could be alternative you can afford.