Being diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer may come as a shock to many people. After all, many people assume that because they found out about their prostate cancer early that their initial treatment had taken care of everything. However, once in a while the cancer perseveres and takes up residence elsewhere in the body. If this has happened to you, there are treatments available to you. Get to know some of these treatment options so that you are knowledgeable and ready for what is ahead in your metastatic prostate cancer treatment plan.

Hormone Therapy

If a person has metastatic prostate cancer that is not overly aggressive and their PSA levels are not rising rapidly, hormone therapy is generally the first treatment option. Hormone injections for prostate cancer are meant to interfere with the signals that the brain sends to the prostate instructing it to release hormones like testosterone.

Basically, if the prostate is not performing its normal functions, then the spread of cancer cells can be slowed or possibly even stopped. The drugs used in hormone therapy to block the signals from the brain are known as antagonists. Antiandrogens are drugs that are also used in hormone therapy to reduce testosterone levels, as testosterone can speed up and increase the growth of cancer cells. 

Chemotherapy

Hormone therapy can sometimes be ineffective if the metastatic prostate cancer is rapidly spreading or particularly aggressive. Additionally, after a prolonged period of time, hormone therapy can become less effective at slowing the progression of metastases. 

When these situations arise, chemotherapy is the primary treatment option. Oftentimes, this cancer treatment is administered intravenously at intervals of a few weeks or months, depending on the way the body responds to the chemotherapy. 

The specific drugs used to treat metastatic prostate cancer vary depending on the specific person's situation and whether or not chemo drugs have worked in the past. Some are also combined with various hormone therapies to approach the cancer from different angles. 

Vaccine Treatments

One of the newest treatment options for metastatic prostate cancer is through the use of vaccines. Researchers have been working on using a polio vaccine to treat and stop the spread of metastases due to prostate cancer.

Originally, the poliovirus vaccine was being studied as a treatment for other types of cancer. However, researchers have expanded the scope of their studies to attempt to treat tumors in incurable metastatic prostate cancer. While this treatment is still in the early stages of trials for prostate cancer, results in lab tests on mice look promising.

Now that you know more about the treatment options for your metastatic prostate cancer, you can get together with a professional oncologist, those at Unity Urology PC, and explore which options are right for you.  And, if standard treatments become problematic, you can look into the various clinical trial options that often become available.