To date, chemotherapy has not proven to be very effective in treating prostate cancer, but clinical trials are in progress to find more effective drugs. Immunotherapy tries to get the body's natural defense mechanism, the immune system, to fight cancer. Immunotherapy uses materials made by your own body or made in a laboratory to boost, direct or restore the effectiveness of the immune system to eliminate cancer cells. Although no effective immunotherapy is available for prostate cancer, exciting research to find antibodies specific to PSA is in progress. Radiation therapy is another effective treatment for prostate cancer.
Radiation therapy uses X-rays or other high energy rays to destroy cancer cells and shrink tumors.
It can be used alone, or in combination with other treatments. Radiation works best against cells that are growing and dividing. Because cancer cells grow and divide more rapidly than many of the normal cells around them, radiation therapy is a useful tool in treating cancer. Although some of the healthy cells in the area where the radiation is given are also destroyed, most normal cells tend to recover more quickly and more fully from the effects of radiation than do the cancer cells. Careful planning is taken to ensure that the radiation affects as little of the normal tissue as possible.