Is There a Natural Cure for Prostate Cancer?

Question: Do you know of a natural cure for prostate cancer? I haven't seen where surgery, chemo, or radiation has helped anyone. My husband has had high-intensity ultrasound treatment. He has recently found out that he still has some cancer remaining, so we are seeking alternative treatments.

Dr. Hibberd's Answer:

There is no known natural cure for prostate cancer. Avoid wasting your time and money on "natural" claims! You are correct to a point: Every conservative treatment does not work in every case. That does not mean you abandon conventional treatments.

Do not treat based on your own Internet research ... remember, that's why you have experts involved in your present management. The secret with this cancer is to select the most effective treatment with the least side effects. Each case needs to be individualized, as the more aggressive treatments are, unfortunately, more prone to side effects.

Much attention has been shown highlighting the tendency to be overly aggressive in a cancer that may not be aggressive in all its victims, but when it is aggressive, the cancer can be devastating. Not all treatments can be justified for early or mild cases.

Various treatments are available, and they include hormone manipulation (Lupron), surgery (both conventional local surgery and laser surgery), and selective external treatments such as radiation as well as radioactive seed implantation. All of these treatments are aimed at destroying local malignant tissue so the spread of the disease (called metastasis) can be avoided.

Recurrence of malignancy is quite common, but allow the urologists and oncologists to select the most appropriate treatment for you. The aggressiveness of the treatment should parallel the aggressiveness of the cancer.

Most prostate cancer is not extremely aggressive, but the secret we have yet to discover is which cases are more likely to be resistant to treatment, and which are more prone to rapid cell growth and metastases. Ideally, we would like to be selectively aggressive with the aggressive metastatic-prone cancers, and more conservative with the slow-growing cases that are not metastasis-prone.

We have the PSA as a tumor marker, but we need some other markers to help us decide how aggressive the cancer is going to be. There is much yet to be learned, and I recommend you discuss your options with your urologist instead of personally selecting your cancer management. Remember, your treatment options will often be different knowing you have had an incomplete response to your first-line treatment.