That needs to be treated immediately and urgently. Likewise, patients that have pain in their hip or other long bones are at increased risk for developing a fracture. So that needs to be assessed immediately and directly. And many patients will have sort of total body pain because prostate cancer often times metastasizes to the bones, and the bones have these very sensitive pain endings on the surface of them that causes inflammation and pain when the cancer spreads to the bone area. So you've got to make an assessment of what the anatomic location of the pain is.
Pain can be the major debilitating thing in the patient's life.
Well, my portion of the presentation deals with the role of the oncologist in the overall management of pain in the patient with prostate cancer, and there are a variety of things that can be done. One can utilize localized areas of radiation therapy. There are a variety of radiopharmaceuticals that actively collect in the bones that are affected by metastatic cancer. One can utilize pain medicines, and the use of chemotherapy has gained an increasing role in the overall management of controlling pain in the patients with prostate cancer. Well, it's difficult to know.