The Urologic Oncology Center Team Addresses Every Aspect of the Patient's Physical and Emotional Well-Being

At the Urologic Oncology Center, we partner with our patients to foster a thorough understanding of the prostate disease process, offering the full spectrum of diagnostic and therapeutic options. The center’s expert team of health care professionals is ready and willing to answer any questions during the course of a prostate cancer diagnosis.

Patients should not hesitate to ask questions or voice concerns during this time. We consider educating patients and their loved ones to be a critical part of the treatment process as well as one of our primary responsibilities.

During the patient consultation, we discuss:

  • Prostate cancer prevention and high-risk screening
  • Active surveillance
  • Localized disease
  • Rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) after initial therapy
  • Metastatic disease before and after testosterone-reducing therapy

Prostate Cancer Prevention & High-Risk Screening

Men with an elevated or rising PSA level or a family history of prostate cancer have an increased risk of developing the disease. These men are closely monitored by our center’s health care professionals and undergo regular digital rectal examinations (DREs) and PSA testing.

Active Surveillance

When a patient is diagnosed with prostate cancer, his disease is categorized into one of several clinical stages. Individualized treatment is tailored to either cure the disease or slow its progression depending on the stage.

Not all prostate cancers progress at the same pace. If a patient’s prostate cancer is not advanced and is growing at a slower rate, he may not need treatment. Based on the characteristics of a patient’s cancer, a University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center physician may recommend that the disease should be closely monitored, deferring treatment for a period of time.

Active surveillance is a dynamic disease management alternative, and patients in this group are monitored closely by their physician. If the cancer becomes more active, the doctor may then decide to move forward with treatment.

Localized Disease

When cancer is contained in one area of the body, available treatments include active surveillance, radiation or surgery. For patients with a localized disease who are unlikely to be cured with these approaches, we offer multimodal therapies, which combine hormone and/or systemic therapy and radiation treatment.

Rising PSA After Initial Therapy

Patients with PSA levels that increased following cancer treatment comprise the second largest segment of this disease population. For these individuals, therapy is directed at preventing the disease from progressing to the point that it produces symptoms or is detectable by a scan or a physical examination.

UH Seidman Cancer Center physicians utilize therapeutic approaches for men with rising PSAs, including patient observation alone or additional prostate treatments. Some patients in this group who have undergone prostatectomy will benefit from further radiation therapy or salvage surgery, while others require systemic treatment.

Our multidisciplinary team of experts is skilled at deciphering which patients will benefit the most from each approach, defining the best possible course of action.

Metastatic Disease Before Testosterone-Reducing Therapy

The metastatic disease before testosterone-reducing therapy clinical stage of prostate cancer includes those patients who are diagnosed with metastatic disease, which is cancer that has spread from the prostate to other sites, and whose testosterone levels are normal. Most patients in this group will receive hormone therapy to slow the progression of the disease.

The center is developing promising, alternative methods to deliver hormone therapy, such as through rapid cycling delivery, to overcome the resistance of cancer cells. UH Seidman Cancer Center team is investigating innovative ways of incorporating chemotherapy as well as harnessing the immune system to further enhance the effects of hormone therapy.

Metastatic Disease After Testosterone-Reducing Therapy

Men whose cancer continues to spread after therapy have tumors that differ on a molecular level from other metastatic prostate tumors.

Treatments for this group of patients include:

  • Additional hormone therapies
  • Chemotherapy for those who are eligible
  • Investigational approaches available through our clinical trials

Metastatic disease treatments are tailored to meet the needs of the individual, and are based on the aggressiveness of cancer and the predicted molecular profile of disease. Standard therapies for patients with metastatic disease who do not respond to hormone treatments are not curative, but rather, are designed to slow the progression of the disease.

Patients in this cancer state are likely to experience side effects and symptoms from metastatic disease. UH Seidman Cancer Center team of medical oncologists, psychiatrists, pain and palliative care specialists, surgeons, and radiation oncologists works in unison to treat the physical and psychological effects of advanced prostate cancer.