What Doctors Handle Treatment?

Transcript

While doctors like me, the urologist, will meet the care, your primary care physician will be essential to evaluate your health status so that the appropriate treatment is selected.

The goal of treatment is to match the severity of the disease with your health status. So we have pivoted from using staging to what we call risk assessment, because everybody understands the term risk as a centerpiece for any type of discussion.

The treatment ranges from active surveillance, and that’s basically not treating, but periodically monitoring the situation, robotic prostatectomy, which is the surgical removal of the entire prostate, radiation therapy, which is administering radiation to the prostate, and in advanced and aggressive disease, hormone / chemotherapy. There are risks and benefits to every treatment option listed.

The urologist would be the primary provider managing and treating the prostate cancer. Radiation would be managed primarily from a radiation oncologist and following completion of radiation, you’ll follow up with your urologist.

Key Takeaways

1. The primary care physician will evaluate your health status to help choose the appropriate treatment.

2. The treatment ranges from active surveillance (basically not treating but monitoring), robotic prostatectomy, radiation therapy, and hormone / chemotherapy.

3. There are risks and benefits to every treatment option.

4. The urologist would primarily handle treatment.

5. A radiation oncologist would manage the radiation and then you would follow up with your urologist.