Can you believe it? Prostate cancer has become the second most common cancer in men worldwide in recent years, with an incidence second only to lung cancer. And in our country, prostate cancer is growing rapidly at a rate of 10% per year.
Bone metastases of prostate cancer are very common in clinical cases, mostly osteogenesis and osteolytic changes coexist, the most direct manifestation of which is that these patients will feel significant pain in the bones of the metastatic site, or even severe pain, and accompanied by limited mobility.
Early prostate cancer can be treated with treatment such as radical prostate cancer resection, but once it has developed to the stage of bone metastasis, it means that the cancer has reached an advanced stage, and conventional surgical treatment cannot be carried out.
How to deal with bone metastasis in prostate cancer?
At present, the main purposes of clinical response to bone metastasis of prostate cancer include controlling tumor progression, relieving patient pain and improving patients' motor ability, and care should also be taken to prevent bone-related events such as fractures, spinal cord compression (paralysis), or bone pain that requires surgery or radiation therapy. Treatments for bone metastases for prostate cancer include the combined application of multiple treatments:
01 Hormone therapy
Endocrine therapy is the most basic treatment in the distant metastasis of prostate cancer, and patients who have received ADT (androgen deprivation therapy) for a long time will cause osteoporosis and increase the risk of fracture, so preventive calcium and vitamin D supplementation are required.
02 Bisphosphonate drug therapy
In patients with bone metastases from prostate cancer, bisphosphonates can reduce and delay bone-related events in patients with bone metastases. Zoledronic acid (Zometa) is a bisphosphonate commonly used in prostate cancer. In addition, other bisphosphonate drugs can also be used to treat prostate cancer that has spread to the bones.
In addition to bisphosphates, denotumab can also help prevent or delay problems such as fractures in patients whose cancer has spread to the bones. It helps even if zoledronic acid no longer works. Denonozumab can also help strengthen bones in patients receiving hormone therapy. Corticosteroid medications (such as prednisone and dexamethasone) can help relieve bone pain and lower PSA (prostate-specific antigen) levels in some patients.
03 Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is one of the main treatment modalities for bone metastases in prostate cancer. For patients who do not respond well to hormone therapy, chemotherapy is another treatment option.
Typically, standard chemotherapy begins with docetaxel plus prednisone. The microtubule inhibitor Cabazitaxel is used in patients with advanced prostate cancer who progress during or after treatment with docetaxel (Taxotere). In patients with symptomatic hormone-resistant prostate cancer, mitoxantrone significantly relieves bone pain, but mitoxantrone has a higher incidence of side effects than carbaltazel or docetaxel.
04 Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy can help reduce bone pain and, in some cases, help reduce pressure on the spinal cord and prevent paralysis.
Radiation therapy can also help relieve other symptoms and improve the quality of life of patients by shrinking tumors in other parts of the body, but radiation therapy is often not recommended for patients with multiple metastatic bone metastases throughout the body, because radiation therapy is not possible to treat all of the systemic metastatic lesions.
05 Radioactive particle therapy
Radioactive particle therapy is currently the most commonly used drug called radium-223, can effectively control the tumor progression of patients with advanced prostate cancer accompanied by bone metastases, and can effectively treat the pain symptoms of patients, due to his short range, so it has almost no impact on the surrounding population, and is increasingly applied to the treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer accompanied by bone metastases.
The treatment of bone metastases in prostate cancer is often related to a variety of factors. Active and standardized treatment can help patients alleviate pain, prolong life, and improve quality of life.
The last thing to tell the majority of patients is that even if prostate cancer has been diagnosed, do not be afraid, as long as we figure out the treatment goals and choose the appropriate program according to the treatment goals, we can still obtain a long-term and quality survival period.