Dr. Yu on Future Directions in Prostate Cancer

Evan Y. Yu, MD, professor, Department of Medical Oncology, University of Washington School of Medicine, member, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and clinical trials core director, Genitourinary Medical Oncology, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, discusses future directions in prostate cancer.

The future of prostate cancer is not only reliant on the consolidation and intensification of systemic therapy, says Yu. As a medical oncologist, Yu favors the new systemic therapies, but the field has to work together to offer patients multidisciplinary and multimodality management strategies. These strategies will enable the eradication of the cancer and cure more patients.

One of those approaches includes surgery. Despite the activity of the new systemic therapies, surgery still has an important role in the paradigm, says Yu. Although it may benefit more patients in the early-stage setting, laparoscopic lymph node dissections may be beneficial to patients who had some oligometastatic lymph nodes. Ultimately, no modality should be discounted as it may confer a survival benefit, says Yu—radiation included.