The term cancer alludes to a condition in which cells accumulate wildly and the capacity to control cell development or death is lost. So as opposed to biting the dust as they ought to, prostate cancer cells live longer than ordinary cells and frame masses of abnormal cells, commonly known as tumors. Primary tumors are the first tumors; secondary tumors happen if the original tumors spread to different locations. By and large, prostate cancer is generally slow developing, which implies that it commonly takes several years to become distinctly vast to be recognizable, and much longer to spread past the prostate.
Get rid of the cancer cells or just let them be? That is the issue men must ponder when diagnosed to have early-stage prostate cancer. While the hazard it presents is minimal, the symptoms of radical medications intended to get rid of these low-grade tumor cells rather not and it regularly causes more damage than expected. For patients who might rather not risk these overwhelming symptoms, there is dynamic surveillance. Concerning the patients who might rather not live with the stress that their cancer may one day metastasize, there may be good news not too far off the researchers have announced a light therapy that can kill tumor cells without even causing any collateral damage to the healthy tissues or the patient’s lifestyle.
Risk Factors:
There are some risk factors that may affect your chances of developing prostate cancer which include:
- Family history: The inherited mutations that lead to prostate cancer in some cases. If a person has a family history of prostate cancer, he is at increased risk of developing the disease himself because he may have inherited damaged DNA.
- Geographical location
- Age
- Race
- Diet
Types of Prostate Cancer:
- Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH): non-cancerous type of and a common issue
- Prostatic adenocarcinoma: Most frequent and is a slow growing form of cancer. Good possibility of achieving cures when found early
- Squamous cell carcinoma: Nonglandular and small cell carcinoma and is a very aggressive form of cancer.
- Small cell carcinoma: Small round cells and a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. More difficult to detect
- Prostatic sarcomas: Extremely rare and occurs in younger men between the age of 35 and 60.
Light therapy and prostate cancer:
It has been found that a new non-surgical treatment for low-risk which is early-stage prostate cancer can effectively kill the cancer cells and it preserves the healthy tissue. It had been reported by a new UCL-led phase III clinical trial with 413 patients.
This new treatment, called as VTP – Vascular-Targeted Photodynamic therapy, involves injecting a light-sensitive drug into the patient’s bloodstream and activating it with a laser in order to destroy the tumor tissue in the prostate. This research was published in The Lancet Oncology.
The Review:
The lead investigator of the research says that – these results are excellent news for all the men with the early stage of prostate cancer since VTP can offer a treatment that can kill cancer without even removing or destroying the prostate. This treatment is truly a huge leap forward for the prostate cancer treatment, which that has previously lagged decades behind other solid cancers like breast cancer. In prostate cancer, we are still either removing or irradiating the whole prostate. Due to that, the success of this new tissue-preserving treatment can be welcome news indeed
Results:
- It has been found that around half which is 49% of patients treated with VTP went into complete remission when compared with 13.5% in the control group.
- No men had significant side effects after 2 years.
- The impact on urination and sexual activity lasted no more than 3 months.
- Amid the follow-up, only 6% of patients needed to have their prostate removed, compared with 30% of patients who did not have the new therapy.
The results are showing that this technology can effectively kill prostate cancer cells, it is not clear whether it could save lives or improve the quality of life for men with the disease. But it is important to conduct these types of trials so that we can assess as well as improve the treatment for early-stage prostate cancer patients. With a longer follow-up, there is a possibility that this treatment can give men long-term benefits.
