Medical professionals emphasize continued monitoring to ensure early diagnosis and in turn prevent recurrences.
Prostate cancer is a disease in which malignant cells form in the tissues, presenting symptoms such as having a weak flow of urine or urinating more frequently. Photo: Shutterstock.
Despite the increase that has occurred in the last six years, in cases of prostate cancer on the Islathere are many effective hormonal treatments and therapies that provide quality of life to patients, even in metastatic stages.
“Today we know that there are many new drugs to improve the survival of the patientfor a cancer metastatic, for example, help improve your quality of life. Now, if the patient is young, the impact is doubly high and positive,” says the Dr. Gilberto Ruiz Deyaurologist at San Lucas Episcopal Medical Center.
In turn, from the middle Medscapean interview was developed on the current behavior worldwide of this oncological condition, with the French specialist Dr. Guillaume c, urologist and oncologist of the La Croix du Sud Clinic, Toulouse, Franceand chair of the breast cancer subcommittee prostate from French Association of Urology (AFU).
Highlighting the progress that research has made in recent years, “our ability to obtain more accurate MRI images, along with improvements made in training radiologists to interpret these images, has made us better at detecting prostate cancer.” “These advances in MRI mean we can identify the most severe cancers, which, in turn, prevents us from starting treatment in patients who don’t need it,” said Dr. Ploussard
Likewise, regarding the factor of preventionthis being one of the most important, for patients 40 years of age or older, with mutations, “has been put into launch a detection strategy early and prevention of prostate cancer: determination of prostate antigen specific (PSA) and digital rectal examination, to be repeated annually or every 2 years,” said the specialist.
These advances are resulting in the different oncogenic departments being overloaded by the demand that arises as a result of this active search, but it is a process to which they must adapt.
Dr. Guillaume postulates on the advance in terms of diagnosis and performing biopsies, that “better MRI images of the prostate mean more precise localization of lesions, as well as giving us an estimate of their size and extent, which helps determine a target area for biopsy.”
With the advancement of technology, treatments for each type of cancer have changed drastically, especially with the metastatic stage of this prostate pathology as a guideline, a factor that has positively impacted the quality and life expectancy of patients throughout the world.
“The biggest change is the arrival of next-generation hormonal therapies (abiraterone, enzalutamide, apalutamide, darolutamide, among others) that directly attack cancer cells in tumors,” Dr. Ploussard develops.
Currently, these treatments are inhibitors of the known androgen receptors, and allow tumor cells to transform into metabolites that promote growth, while antiandrogens limit the effects that stimulate the reduction of androgen concentration in the blood.
The specialist determines that for “cases resistant to castration, we also have third-line treatments such as olaparib (Lynparza), an anti-PARP indicated for patients with BRCA1/2 mutations, chemotherapy or radionuclide therapy to increase the hope of life.”
Today, there are several treatments under development, including radionuclide therapy, which seems to be one of the most promising in recent years, but has not yet been approved, its use currently lies in centers of early access.
“Its approval for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant cancer will be issued very soon. Other trials are underway to evaluate the use of the treatment in earlier stages of the disease. This radiotherapy has the advantage of targeting cancer cells using antibodies of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), the results are very encouraging and we hope that this treatment will open up to earlier stages of the disease,” concludes Dr.