Treatment Side Effects



Treatments for prostate cancer will produce some side effects, although the intensity are reduced due to medical advancement. They are:

Urinary Dysfunction

This can include incontinence and partial and complete loss of bladder control as well as urinary bother such as higher urinary frequency, increased urgency to urinate and pain during urination.

About 25% of prostatectomy patient experience some form of incontinence and may need to rely on using absorbent pads. This figure eventually drop to less than 10% after two years.

Urinary bother or irritative voiding symptoms can result from external beam radiotherapy, which irritate the bladder and the urethra and cause inflammation and swelling of the prostate. 45% of patient undergoing external beam radiotherapy report having urinary bother. However, this will usually go away by itself in about one year, although some 10% of patient still require medication after two years.

Urinary dysfunction is the most severe after branchytherapy, affecting more than 70% of patients and medication is required. This rate dip below 25% after two years.

Medication will usually be given following treatment to abate the effects of urinary dysfunction. In persistence urinary dysfunction, patient can seek collagen injection as well as silicone sling or human tissue sling implant. None of these methods have fully stop urinary dysfunction, recording only the highest success rate of about 70%.


Bowel Dysfunction

Bowel dysfunction varies from frequent stools and diarrhea, inability to control bowel movements and rectal bleeding. This usually happen following external beam radiotherapy as standard external beam radiotherapy cover a wide area with radiation and can injure other surrounding tissues. This injury will only get worse over time as radiation accumulate inside the body which each treatment.

The chances of bowel dysfunction after branchytherapy is much lower than external beam radiotherapy and the lowest being prostatectomy.

There are no medical way to counter bowel dysfunction, only monitoring the intake of food and void eating food that will worsen the condition.


Erectile Dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction will follow for the first few months after surgery or external beam radiotherapy, even in the most successful surgery. Although the nerves that control erection is not injured, it is super sensitive and changes to its surrounfing is enough to affect its function.  If the nerve is still intact and uninjured, 50% of men will recover their pre-surgery condition in the first year, and this number increase to 75% two years after surgery.

External beam radiotherapy will harm the erection nerves twice as much as branchytherapy that's affecting 25% of its patients. They will rarely see much improvement overtime.

It is crucial to engage a doctor who is proficient enough to not injure erection nerves. Talk to your doctor prior to the surgery to discuss this. Men with existing erection problems such as diabetes will have a tougher time recovering their erection function.

Men are spoilt with choices when it comes to overcoming erection dysfunction. Oral medication can help and about 75% of patients using oral medication reported successful erections. Products that deliver direct medication to the penis are available in pellet form as well as injection syringe form. Vacuum constriction pump can also be used alongside a rubber ring.

Patients can also get an penile implant surgery which is a long term solution, which patient maintaining a 70% satisfaction rate even after 10 years of implant.


Loss Of Fertility

Loss of fertillity is as sure thing after prostatectomy or external beam radiotherapy. In prostatectomy, the two organ that produces semen - the prostate and the nearby seminal vesicles are removed. Without semen, ejaculation is impossible and the sperms have no means of making it to the egg.

In external beam radiotherapy, sperms can get damaged or semen ability to transport sperms are impaired.

Possible ways to preserve fertility is either through sperm banking (freezing the sperms prior to treatment) or harvesting the sperms directly from the testicles where they are manufactured and kept.

The sperms can then be used in an artificial insemination method that yield approximately a 50% success rate.


Effects From Loss Of Testosterone

Testosterone, a type of male hormone produced by the body is the primary fuel that prostate cancer cells feed on to grow. Various treatments can be deployed to hinder the production or the effect of testosterone, hence suffocating prostate cancer cells.

Unfortunately, testosterone is also the hormone that give male characteristics to men, such as chest hair, muscle mass and sex drive, among others. The effect of losing testosterone is broad and life-changing. Men who went through hormone therapy will experience side effects such as hot flashes, decreased sexual desire, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, weight and muscle loss, weight gain and even memory loss.

Doctors then offer a solution to these problems, in the form of treatment cycle, known as intermittent therapy. Hormone therapy is performed for anywhere between six to twelve months, where low PSA reading is maintained. After this cycle has stopped, PSA reading will rise again slowly. Another cycle of treatment will begin when the PSA level have rise to a certain level.

This method enable patient to enjoy a normal life in between cycles of treatment.


Side Effects From Chemotherapy

Side effects vary from person to person. There are many varieties of drugs to alleviate them.