For Healthcare Professionals: Clinical Updates in Prostate Cancer

The Sidney Kimmel Center for Prostate and Urologic Cancers has more than 30 urologic surgeons, medical oncologists, and physicians from other clinical disciplines who provide an array of prostate cancer treatment options to 3,700 men annually. Recent progress in understanding the biology of prostate malignancies, combined with advances in surgery, radiation therapy, and medical therapies, has made it possible to eliminate most localized prostate cancers, and to substantially extend life for men with metastatic disease. Specialists in sexual health and psychosocial services assist in formulating treatment approaches that accommodate each man’s tolerance for potential side effects and expectations for quality of life. Overtreatment is avoided through our ability to characterize indolent disease and safely defer surgery or radiation therapy through active surveillance by our physicians. Clinical geneticists provide expert guidance to men and their families about screening and other options. Extensive cancer research initiatives complement this clinical care, with more than 100 laboratory investigators and clinical scientists examining the biology of prostate cancer and researching ways to improve diagnostic and treatment approaches. Ongoing clinical trials provide many men with opportunities to try diagnostic methods and innovative therapies unavailable elsewhere.