Prostate cancer is the No. 1 cause of cancer death among American men who don’t smoke, and the No. 2 cause of cancer death in American men overall. And yet, there’s a lot of misinformation about the best way to treat it.
Mayo Clinic’s Genitourinary (GU) Oncology team in Rochester aims to set the record straight. The team—which includes Group Chair Dr. Brian Costello, Dr. Lance Pagliaro, Physician Assistant Megan Spychalla, and leading advanced prostate cancer experts Dr. Oliver Sartor, Dr. Dan Childs, Dr. Jacob Orme, and Dr. J. Fernando Quevedo—has unparalleled expertise in the full range of GU cancers (bladder, kidney, testicular, penile, and prostate cancers).
“Our team doesn’t believe in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to treating cancer,” says Dr. Childs.
Truly individualized medicine
First, doctors perform tests to determine whether the cancer is localized (confined to the prostate) or metastatic, also known as advanced (has spread to other parts of the body). At Mayo Clinic, they do this using newer generation imaging like PSMA PET scans. These highly sensitive tools use special types of tracers, which in some cases are more sensitive in detecting metastases than traditional imaging like bone scans, CT scans, and standard PET scans.
Photos Courtesy of Mayo Clinic
There are many phases of advanced prostate cancer, each of which affects the choice of treatment. For example, whether cancer is hormone-sensitive (responsive to androgen deprivation therapy) or castration-resistant (has lost responsiveness to androgen deprivation therapy) could influence the choice of systemic therapy.
Genetic testing is another important part of the equation. It allows doctors to understand the specific DNA or RNA in the tumor itself — helping them predict how the body may respond to specific treatments.
Taking all these variables into account, the care team and patient work together to choose the best treatment plan for their specific cancer.
Expertise from experience
Mayo Clinic sees about 20,000 patients with prostate cancer a year—one of the largest patient volumes in the U.S.—so it’s hard to find something they haven’t seen before. Their expertise in prostate cancer—which includes urology, radiation oncology, nuclear medicine, and medical oncology—is exceptionally deep.
And the development of new therapies like radiopharmaceuticals has doctors and patients excited about the future. These drugs represent a paradigm shift in how advanced prostate cancer is treated, because they’re much more targeted than traditional chemotherapy. One type, PSMA-targeted radioligand therapy, has proven particularly effective at slowing the progression of advanced prostate cancer to help people live longer, typically with more manageable side effects.
“Our only goal is to help our patients to live the highest quality and quantity of life possible,” says Dr. Orme.
Radiopharmaceuticals precisely deliver a small, targeted dose of radiation treatment to kill cancer cells, leaving the surrounding healthy tissue untouched. Mayo Clinic’s expertise in this highly specialized field is unmatched. In fact, no other hospital in the world has more experience administering PSMA-targeted radiopharmaceutical therapies.
“When we get smarter, you get better,” says Dr. Sartor. “And we’re getting smarter at a rapid pace.”
mayoclinic.org/advancedprostatecancer | 507-923-2566
