The doctor has begun talking to you about which treatments you will need to consider for your prostate cancer. He/She mentioned cryo and chemo as possible options. What are the risks of each, and how long are the treatments and recovery?
CRYO
Cyro is the nickname given to cryotherapy or cryoablation. The prefix cryo means freezing. so the doctor in this treatment will freeze the cells in the prostate in order to kill the cancer cells. This treatment has evolved over the years and has improved to the degree that many doctors place it in the same recovery rates as seed radiation and a radical prostatectomy. There has not been enough long term studies to see exactly where it falls in survival rates with the other treatments available. It also has some of the same side effects as the other two treatment too.
THE PROCEDURE
The procedure has evolved to help reduce the peripheral damage that was too common in the early days of the treatment. It begins with the patient undergoing general anesthesia. A warming catheter is then placed in the urethra to aid in preventing damage to the urethra from the freezing of the prostate. Using specially designed needles that either warm or freeze the area of insertion based on the specific needs of the procedure. The warming needle are used to reduce unnecessary damage to surrounding tissue, including nerves, rectum and urethra. The freezing needles are used to create small balls of frozen tissue. This freezing kills the tissue, both healthy and cancerous. The doctor then allows the tissue to thaw, either by allowing the body to warm the tissue, or by using warming needles to help in the thawing. This freeze/thaw cycle is repeated once or twice more based on what the doctor sees in the imaging during the procedure. The overall procedure takes a couple of hours. Recovery is fairly quick compared with other procedures and you should be able to be back to your normal routine in a couple of weeks.
SIDE EFFECTS
Just as in seed radiation and surgery, cryo treatment for your prostate cancer has about the same side effects. Impotence is the most common side effect with recovery in about 50% of the cases. The sloughing of damaged cells in the urethra has been reduced with the warming catheter but is still a possibility. There is a chance of damage to some of the surrounding tissue depending on how involve the cancer has been in the prostate. There is a small chance of minimal loss of blood because there are no incisions, only needles.
CHEMO AND CRYO
Chemotherapy uses a drug cocktail to kill the cancer cells in the body. It is most often used as a follow up treatment should radiation, surgery, or cryo fail to eliminate the cancer cells during those procedures. And, it is generally considered a last resort treatment. Chemo is also considered when your prostate cancer has metastasized. Cryo is also considered as an option after surgery and radiation if the cancer cells are considered to be radioresistant. Both of these treatment increase the chance of beating your cancer should the circumstances need them. When considering the options for the treatment of your prostate cancer, discuss with your doctor the use of cryotherapy as an initial treatment. And, when necessary be prepared to discuss chemotherapy as a treatment to help you become healthy again. And always consider the side effects and their potential impact on your life.
Author was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and chose to undergo a radical prostatectomy. Since being diagnosed and while recovering from surgery, the different options for treatment became more intriguing because of what the websites he visited did not really go into about the side effects of the various treatments. In response to this lack of information he decided to create a website dedicated to the victims of prostate cancer so that the side effects could be shared and discussed. The result was http://beforeprostatesurgery.com/.
