Approach to Patients with High-Risk Localized Prostate Cancer: Radiation Oncology Perspective

Opinion statementHigh-risk localized prostate cancer is a challenging clinical entity to treat, with heterogeneous responses to an evolving array of multidisciplinary treatment approaches. In addition, this disease state is growing in incidence due to a variety of factors, including shifting recommendations that discouraged routine prostate cancer screening. Current guidelines now incorporate an informed decision-making process for prostate cancer screening and evaluation. More work is underway to improve targeted screening for certain at-risk populations and to implement greater personalization in the use of diagnostic tools. Once diagnosed with high-risk localized disease, a multimodality treatment paradigm is warranted. Radiation —in its various forms and combinations—plays a large and continually evolving role in the management of high-risk prostate cancer, yet treatment outcomes are still suboptimal. There is a growing need to improve upon current treatment approaches, and better personalize a particular treatment reco mmendation based on both tumor and patient characteristics, as well as patient preference and goals of therapy. Given that treatment generally requires more than one therapy, there are notable implications on long-term quality of life, especially with respect to overlapping and cumulative side effec ts of local and systemic therapies, respectively. The desire for aggressive therapy to optimize cancer control outcomes must be weighed against the risk of...
Source: Current Treatment Options in Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research