Once your treatment is complete, your doctor is likely to recommend that you see him or her regularly for checkups. During these exams your doctor will probably perform a PSA blood test and digital rectal exam to help ensure that your cancer has not returned. In some cases, patients may require follow-up biopsies at intervals.
Management of Complications
Advances in treatment approaches, such as nerve-sparing techniques and 3-D conformal radiotherapy, have made some of the complications of prostate cancer treatments less common and more manageable. Still, the disease and its treatments sometimes result in short-term and long-term complications.
In choosing a treatment approach, you are likely to have discussed complications such as incontinence and impotence with your doctor, but you should contact him or her if you are experiencing any unexpected symptoms or if these problems are causing you distress.
Role of Rehabilitation Services
Following medical treatment or abdominal surgery for prostate cancer, a patient may notice changes in his strength, flexibility, balance, and endurance. Patients with prostate cancer can improve their function and quality of life through rehabilitation therapy. At Memorial Sloan-Kettering, physical therapists work closely with the medical team to design individualized exercise programs to increase patients' strength, endurance, and balance after treatments. They offer patients valuable techniques to increase mobility without increasing pain and discomfort after surgery. See Rehabilitation for further information about our services, including appointment information.
Emotional & Sexual Health
Memorial Sloan-Kettering's prostate cancer experts includes a doctor whose expertise is in treating the emotional and psychological distress that can arise from prostate cancer and the effects of treatment for the disease. We also have counselors who specialize in helping patients manage the changes in sexuality that can follow treatment for a number of cancers.
Sexuality can be affected by cancer and its treatment. Memorial Sloan-Kettering has many physicians, nurses, social workers, and psychologists who are familiar with sexual health problems as they relate to cancer treatment and can help you address your concerns. We also have a urologist who specializes in male sexual health problems.
