Metastatic Prostate Cancer - Update

Prostate cancer often spreads to the bones, but despite this worrisome development, most prostate cancer patients have few problems relating to the bones. The fact that prostate cancer has spread to the lumbar spine does not necessarily mean that the spine complications, such as pain, fractures, or muscle weakness, will follow.

Prostate cancer metastases tend to be blastic; that is, they tend to make the bones around them thicker and more dense, whereas many other types of cancer metastasis to the bones tend to be lytic, which means they tend to destroy and remove the bones around them. This means that pathological fractures are relatively uncommon in prostate cancer, and it is likely that a patient with prostate cancer in the spine will not suffer a pathological fracture. The metastatic deposits of prostate cancer in the spine can cause pain but there are many effective treatments available which the oncologist can use to eliminate the pain.

Prostate cancer is a relatively slow-growing type of cancer. Many men have it in their later years, but few of them actually die of it. Since it tends to effect elderly men, many men with prostate cancer will die of "natural causes" unrelated to the cancer. When prostate cancer affects younger men, it may take a more aggressive form and be rapidly spreading, and even fatal. Untreated prostate cancer is definitely fatal, but there are many ways to slow and check the growth of prostate cancer.

Even patients whose prostate cancer has spread to their bones enjoy a long survival, often several years, and occasionally many years.

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