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Medical Treatments For Patients With Advanced Prostate Cancer

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alliative radiotherapy will not cure your cancer but can help slow down its growth and relieve symptoms such as pain.
Who can have palliative radiotherapy?
Palliative radiotherapy is one of the treatments used to slow down the growth of cancer and control symptoms in men with advanced prostate cancer. Advanced prostate cancer is not curable but treatment can keep it under control for months or years. Having advanced prostate cancer means that the cancer has spread from the prostate, to other parts of the body. Prostate cancer can spread to any part of the body, but most commonly to the bones or lymph nodes. ‘Bone metastases’ or ‘bone secondaries’ are the terms used to describe cancer that has spread to the bone. This can cause pain and problems with moving around. In some cases, men with advanced prostate cancer may also experience painful lymph nodes or blood in their urine, caused by bleeding from the prostate. These symptoms can sometimes be relieved with palliative radiotherapy.

Palliative radiotherapy may not be suitable for every man with advanced prostate cancer. This will depend on where your cancer has spread to, whether it is causing symptoms and what treatment you have already had. Your specialist team will help you to decide whether palliative radiotherapy may benefit you. You may be offered other treatments to help control the symptoms of advanced prostate cancer. These include pain-relieving drugs, hormone therapy, chemotherapy and drugs called

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