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Prostate Cancer Care

When you're a patient at Swedish, we don't just treat your prostate cancer – we treat you. We use the most advanced treatments to create a highly personalized care plan. We also support you and your loved ones with a full range of services throughout your entire cancer journey. The result is effective, whole-person care for your body, mind and spirit.

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Phone: 1-855-XCANCER (1-855-922-6237)

Why Choose Us for Prostate Cancer Care?

At Swedish, we see the life in you. Together, let’s finish cancer – so you don’t have to miss any of life’s special moments.

While prostate cancer is the second-most common type of cancer among men, no two patients, or their treatment plans, are alike. Prostate cancer care may range from active monitoring only to aggressive treatment, depending on the biology of the cancer and the overall health of the patient. This is why, at Swedish, we take a highly personalized approach to your prostate cancer care. Your oncology team will collaborate with other cancer care experts about your specific diagnosis and evaluate your genomic and clinical information to find the best genetically matched treatment for you. Your oncology team will work with you directly to design a treatment plan that fits your personal needs. It’s an approach that combines leading-edge treatment with the compassionate care Swedish is known for. Why? Because we know this results in the best outcomes.

Swedish has the state’s most experienced prostate cancer medical team, including dedicated oncologists whose sole focus is cancer treatment. Our program has treated more men than any other in Washington. As one of the nation’s top prostate cancer programs, Swedish offers all the latest therapies, including robotic laparoscopic surgery, radiation seed implantation (brachytherapy), digital diagnostic imaging and stereotactic radiosurgery.

Learn more about the experts who make up our multidisciplinary cancer care teams.

Cancer doesn’t discriminate, but access to great prostate cancer care hasn’t always been the same for everyone. At Swedish, we are deeply committed to making sure every patient we treat has access to the best cancer care. We offer various location-specific services to help our patients receive equitable care, such as translation for non-English-speaking patients, telehealth and transportation assistance. We value, respect and support the racial, ethnic, religious, spiritual, gender and sexual identities of each member of our diverse communities, and we welcome all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. We aim to make sure every patient is treated equally and with dignity – whoever you are, and wherever you're at.

At any given time, the Swedish Cancer Institute offers patients more than 140 clinical-research studies involving most types of cancers. Clinical trials give patients access to promising new medications and procedures before they are widely available. Such trials are also the primary way that progress is made in finding better approaches to treatment and cure. Additionally, our physician specialists collaborate with other regional and national research groups, including Southwest Oncology Group, National Cancer Institute, Puget Sound Oncology Consortium and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

About Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is a type of urologic cancer. It’s the most common type of cancer in American men. When caught early, prostate cancer is highly curable. The expert oncology teams at Swedish use the most effective therapies to treat patients with every type of prostate cancer and its related conditions.

Testing and Diagnostics

doctor reviews results with patient

Diagnostic tools help our cancer clinicians determine which therapies will work best for each patient, based on many factors such as cancer type and the genetic or molecular profile of the tumor. Some of our urologists use the transperineal prostate biopsy diagnostic technique, a technique that has the lowest infection risk of all biopsy diagnostics. Your doctor will use multiple advanced diagnostic and prognostic tools like this one to help design your individualized treatment plan. Depending on your case, this may include one or more of the following:


Personalized Treatment for Prostate Cancer

We take a team approach to your prostate cancer treatment because we know this offers the best success in controlling and curing cancer. Your multidisciplinary cancer care team will work with you to design an individualized cancer care plan – from diagnosis to post-treatment support. We offer many different therapies across our Swedish locations. Depending on your condition, your personal care plan may include one or more of the following:

Systemic therapies travel through the bloodstream and affect cells in other body parts. They are used for patients whose cancer has spread to other areas of the body or if there’s a high risk of spread. Sophisticated genetic analysis allows us to target therapies to specific DNA mutations that cause cancer cells to develop and grow. Systemic therapies include:

Chemotherapy is the systemic use of cytotoxic chemicals to kill cancer cells. Today there are many medications (e.g., biological medications, immune treatments, targeted therapies) that do not fit the classic definition of chemotherapy yet are often included in this category.

Clinical trials represent research protocols that include the use of new drugs or drug combinations in a specific clinical situation.

Hormone therapy is the use of drugs that inhibit the production or block the effect of certain hormones (usually sex hormones), helping to control cancer-cell growth.

Immunotherapy uses drugs to allow the body’s own immune system to more effectively find and destroy cancer cells.

Surgical therapies involve an operation or procedure to remove cancer from the body. Surgery may be the main treatment for some invasive cancers, but it’s only one part of the entire treatment plan. Surgical therapies include:

Open nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy is a procedure to remove the prostate gland, surrounding tissues and seminal vesicles while protecting the nerves in the region.

Laparoscopic nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy is a procedure to remove the prostate gland, surrounding tissues and seminal vesicles through a laparoscope, while protecting the nerves in the region. The surgeon uses a small video camera to assist this surgery.

Robotic nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy is a robotic-assisted procedure to remove the prostate gland, surrounding tissues and seminal vesicles while protecting the nerves in the region.

Robotic-assisted surgery allows for better and more controlled access, giving the surgeon a clear and magnified view of the surgical area. It allows them to use smaller instruments and move with greater precision in a minimally invasive fashion, all of which results in a less traumatic experience and quicker recovery for the patient.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Open pelvic lymphadenectomy can be used to prevent the accumulation of lymphatic fluid (lymphedema) that leads to swelling. Two such procedures are reverse lymphatic mapping, which allows surgeons to identify lymph nodes that can be preserved during surgery, and lymphovenous bypass surgery, which enables surgeons to reestablish lymphatic drainage.

Robotic pelvic lymphadenectomy involves the surgical removal of groups of lymph nodes in the pelvic area and near the aorta. The surgeon uses a control panel to guide a small robotic arm. The tissue is then tested to determine whether cancer cells are present.

Robotic-assisted surgery allows for better and more controlled access, giving the surgeon a clear and magnified view of the surgical area. It allows them to use smaller instruments and move with greater precision in a minimally invasive fashion, all of which results in a less traumatic experience and quicker recovery for the patient.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation from a source like X-rays or photons to kill cancer cells or shrink tumors. It may be part of a treatment plan that also includes systemic therapies and/or surgery. Radiation is sometimes used to help ease a patient’s pain or discomfort. Radiation therapies include:

Brachytherapy is an approach to delivering radiation treatment from a source implanted inside the body. These sources may be placed either permanently or temporarily at the tumor site.

By delivering radiation directly into a tumor, this technique spares the surrounding normal tissue any exposure to radiation and the side effects that it may bring.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians and support. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) are advanced types of radiation therapies. IMRT uses advanced technology to manipulate the radiation beams to conform to the shape of a tumor. VMAT is a subtype of IMRT in which the machine actively delivers radiation beams while moving in an arc around the patient.

This method of radiation delivery offers next-generation capabilities. The arc-based therapy provided via VMAT delivers high doses of radiation to more focused areas, reducing side effects and the overall treatment time for the patient. This treatment is particularly effective at treating several types of cancer while at the same time reducing toxicity and harm to vital organs.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Radiopharmaceuticals (Lu-177) is a radioisotope that is combined with a delivery molecule to specifically target a type of cancer cell in some neuroendocrine tumors and prostate cancers. This radiopharmaceutical compound simulates the action of a naturally occurring substance and binds to cancer cells. This interaction slows the growth of cancer cells, while at the same time working to destroy them using a radioactive particle inside the cell to damage the cancer cells’ DNA.

The elegance of this therapy lies in its ability to bind the medication directly to cancer cells and to apply radiation from inside the cancer cell – thus delivering a potent dose that does not penetrate very far, thereby sparing normal adjacent healthy cells.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy intravenously. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized and licensed physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Radiopharmaceuticals (Radium-223) is a bone-seeking radioactive isotope that concentrates in the bones of patients with metastatic prostate cancer. It kills the cancer cells in the bone by delivering radiation right to the cancer cell. A commonly used agent is Xofigo.

This allows normal bone and bone marrow to grow again and fill in the areas treated. This treatment reduces pain and improves outcomes by destroying cancer cells.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy intravenously. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized and licensed physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Stereotactic radiation (SABR/SBRT) is a group of treatments that includes stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and stereotactic ablative radiation (SABR) – both of which are adaptations of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) – for the treatment of targets in the body, but outside the brain. Similar to SRS, these techniques deliver very high doses of radiation using sophisticated motion management and patient immobilization techniques.

The number of radiation treatments is minimal and may range from one to five treatments delivered over one to two weeks.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Additional therapies may also be part of the treatment plan for a small number of patients. These may include:

Cryoablation is a procedure that involves directly freezing and killing cancer cells.

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a minimally invasive treatment that uses ultrasound waves to destroy tumors. The technology allows the beams to directly target a specific area, leaving surrounding tissues unharmed.

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Accreditations

We are proud to see our dedication to our cancer patients recognized by some of the most well-respected programs and institutions in the United States. Several of our Swedish locations have achieved the following accreditations:

Meet the Team

At Swedish, you'll have access to a vast network of dedicated and compassionate providers who offer personalized care by focusing on treatment, prevention and health education.

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Find Clinical Trials

Are you looking for a clinical trial for yourself or for a patient? We’d love to help you find one!