Treatment of metastatic prostate cancer  

Treatment of metastatic prostate cancer is based on inhibiting the action of male hormones either by inhibiting their excretion or by inhibiting their effect on the cancer foci. You will receive hormone therapy as injections or tablets. Hormone therapies can be combined with radiation therapy that alleviates symptoms, bone medication, chemotherapy, or radionuclide therapy.

Radiation therapy is a highly effective method of alleviating many of the symptoms of advanced prostate cancer. Radiation therapy can be used to relieve bone pain or symptoms such as blockage of the urinary flow due to localized growth of the prostate cancer, and hematuria. The most common indication for radiation therapy in advanced prostate cancer is the treatment of painful metastases or metastases that compress the nerves of the spinal cord. You will usually receive radiation therapy to relieve symptoms as a series of 1–10 sessions.

Chemotherapy is a drug treatment used to treat cancer that prevents cancer cells from growing and dividing. Chemotherapy has typically been given at a stage where hormonal injection therapy has lost its effectiveness. In recent years, however, chemotherapy has also been given to patients who are diagnosed with a disease that has already spread widely to the bones or who have metastases to internal organs already at the time of cancer diagnosis.  

The purpose of bone medication is to strengthen the skeleton and prevent bone fractures when traditional hormone injection therapy is no longer effective and the disease has sent numerous bone metastases.