Advanced Prostate Cancer

Patients with Stage 4 prostate cancer have cancer that has spread from the prostate to other sites. Advanced prostate cancer most often goes to the bones. Much less often, it will spread to other organs, including the lungs and liver. (It’s still called prostate cancer, even though it’s moved somewhere else.)

The following is an overview for the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer. The information on this web-site is intended to help educate you about your treatment options and to create discussion to help in the decision-making process with your treatment team.

Men diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer usually do not receive local treatments of the primary prostate tumor, such as surgery or radiation. Instead, their therapeutic journey might start with hormone therapy, and from there follow a similar path as men who were diagnosed at an earlier stage and had subsequent disease progression.

Your cancer will ultimately influence the treatments that are right for your situation.  

Treatment may also include surgery, radiation, targeted therapy, or a combination of these treatment techniques. Multidisciplinary treatment, which uses two or more treatment types, is important for every cancer patient and will help in creating a care plan and goals for improving a chance of cure or prolonging survival. In some cases, participation in a clinical trial may provide additional options.