More targeted forms of radiation carry a lower risk of impotence and incontinence. Nerve-sparing surgery, along with interstitial therapy and conformational radiation, require physicians with additional expertise. Patients need to ask the specialist how many procedures they have performed and what their success rate is before undergoing this type of therapy. Hormonal therapy has also proved to be an effective treatment in some cases. Hormone treatments are not considered a cure, though they can cause remissions of varying durations.
Impotence is still a possible side effect.
Cryosurgery, or freezing of the prostate gland to kill the tissue, appears to be especially effective in patients who have had a recurrence of cancer after radiation. Because so many treatments are relatively new, there are not yet reliable statistics on how mortality rates have been affected. Regardless of the type of treatment, early detection is important. The only difficulty is we need to know for sure that the men treated are the ones that need to have treatment, because the cures have side effects and you just don't want to treat men who don't need it. A big part of determining which treatment to pursue is determining how fast the cancer is growing.