Prostate Cancer Continued Care
Overview of prostate cancer continued care
There have been many improvements in prostate cancer treatments. MSK experts have seen these therapies slow prostate cancer’s growth and raise the chance of recovery. People with prostate cancer can get back to their lives and usual activities.
Cancer treatment can still cause late side effects months or years after treatment. If this happens, you’ll have a follow-up care plan from a team of MSK prostate cancer experts. Our focus is making sure you have a full and healthy life during and after your care.
We know you may have questions about what comes next. We’re ready to help you move forward. At MSK, we help you and your loved ones find the right kind of support.
MSK helps you live your life after prostate cancer treatment ends. Our advanced practice providers have special training to make a survivorship care plan for you. They’ll guide you to the right kind of support, such as rehabilitation and exercise, nutritional counseling, or tobacco cessation.
Follow-up care after prostate cancer treatment
At MSK Commack, medical oncologist Dr. Emily Feld is on a team ranked #1 in the nation for urology cancer care by U.S. News & World Report.
How does MSK monitor you for prostate cancer after treatment?
It’s normal to worry about prostate cancer coming back after you finish treatment. You’ll keep seeing your MSK prostate care team 1 to 4 times a year after you finish treatment. We plan follow-up visits around your schedule and personal needs.
Your team now includes an advanced practice provider (APP). Your APP is a healthcare provider with special training in prostate cancer and follow-up care.
They work closely with the team that cared for you during treatment. An example of an APP is a nurse practitioner (NP).
When you meet with your APP, they’ll monitor (look for) any signs of cancer coming back. You may have a PSA blood test or other imaging test to check for early signs of cancer coming back. Your APP will make a screening schedule that’s right for you.
Your APP will check carefully to prevent, spot, and control any late effects of the disease or treatment.
Your care team will make the best follow-up plan for you
At your follow-up visits and between appointments, your APP will:
- Check for signs of recurrence (the cancer has come back). They may schedule a PSA blood test or other biomarker test.
- Look for any side effects and put a plan in place to manage them.
- Talk with you about ways to prevent new health problems. They’ll make health recommendations about eating healthy foods, exercise, and quitting smoking.
- Make a treatment summary and follow-up care plan for you.
- Schedule visits with MSK experts, if you need them.
- Recommend any cancer screenings you may need. MSK experts have guidelines for cancer screening based on your age, family history, and overall risk.
Dr. Ginger Gardner highlights the expert care people receive after they finish active cancer treatment and move into MSK's Adult Survivorship Program.
Welcome. You’ve reached an important milestone in your cancer journey.
I’m Dr. Ginger Gardner, a gynecologic surgeon here at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Now that your cancer treatment is behind you, I’m excited to discuss what lies ahead as your care is transitioned to the Adult Survivorship Program at MSK. This is the next phase of your cancer journey — you’re moving from cancer-focused treatment to holistic, quality-of-life care. And that’s great news.
Our Survivorship providers are experts in dealing with your cancer and the challenges that survivors like you may experience as a result of prior treatment. That is what they do every day. They have expertise that general practitioners don’t necessarily have.
Your Survivorship Advanced Practice Provider, or APP, will continue to monitor you for cancer recurrence, but will also address other important aspects of your health including screening recommendations for other cancers, physical exams and testing, counseling on healthy living habits, and emotional resources, as well as referral to experts — whether they be within or outside of MSK.
Within Survivorship, all of your care will be completely integrated.
We know how much trust you have developed with your cancer provider and how hard it can be to start seeing someone new. We’re not removing you from your current MSK provider — rather, adding a new expert to your care team. And if you ever need your cancer doctor, they’re simply a phone call away.
Your primary MSK physician will guide you along this transition and put your mind at ease so you can start putting cancer behind you.
Your APP works closely with your treatment team. After each follow-up visit, your APP will update your other healthcare providers. They’ll share your treatment summary and survivorship care plan with your primary care doctor and any other healthcare providers.
What other follow-up care is needed after prostate cancer treatment?
Some prostate cancer treatments can cause side effects. Your MSK prostate cancer follow-up care team has options to treat these new challenges. They’ll recommend therapies to help you, backed by research.
Side effects of prostate cancer treatment can include:
- Hot flashes or sweating.
- Muscle loss.
- Urinary, bladder, and bowel problems.
- Erectile dysfunction (having trouble getting or keeping an erection).
- Wanting to have sex less than usual.
- Fatigue (feeling very tired or having less energy than usual).
- Cognitive changes, such as memory loss or having a hard time focusing.
- Constipation (hard to have a bowel movement).
Cancer and its treatments can affect your sexual health, as well as your physical and emotional health. You many lose interest in having sex or being intimate. MSK has programs to support your sexual health for men and women.
Side effects of prostate cancer treatment can affect your sex life. Our Male Sexual and Reproductive Medicine Program can help you manage:
- Desire to have sex
- Ejaculation (having an orgasm)
- Getting and keeping an erection
- Your fertility (having a biological child)
Learn more about what the male sexual health program offers.
Common questions after prostate cancer treatment
You may be in treatment now or nearing the end of your treatment. You probably have questions about what life will look like when your treatment is over.
Our experts have the answers to your questions about life after treatment.
Yes. Prostate surgery and cancer treatment can cause side effects, such fatigue (feeling very tired). We can help you get back to doing the things that matter most to you.
Your APP will make a follow-up care plan just for you. They’ll recommend supportive therapies and safe exercises that help with side effects.
MSK’s Integrative Medicine and Wellness Service can also help. Integrative medicine adds natural treatments such as acupuncture, massage, and yoga to your care plan. All of our holistic health services and programs are based on the latest research.
Life during and after prostate cancer can feel lonely. You may think no one else understands what you’re going through. You may feel stressed, anxious, left out, or angry.
It can help to talk to someone with special training in cancer mental health. They can help you make sense of your experience before, during, and after cancer treatment.
MSK’s trained cancer mental health team can help you cope with emotional and social challenges. We offer individual and group counseling sessions, both in person and through telemedicine visits. We also have free, online support groups.
Erectile dysfunction (ED) means having trouble getting or keeping an erection.
ED can be a short-term side effect of prostate cancer treatment. But it could take more than a year for ED to go away after prostate surgery.
Health insurance may not cover many treatments offered by MSK’s Male Sexual and Reproductive Medicine Program. Coverage depends on your diagnosis and your treatment plan. Your care team may ask you to call your insurer to ask what medicines they’ll pay for.
Your care team will prescribe the treatment that costs less under your insurance plan. They’ll also offer other options.
Urinary reconstruction surgery
Incontinence after prostate cancer treatment
Urinary continence is being able to stop urine (pee) from leaking from your bladder by accident. Leaking urine is called incontinence (in-KON-tih-nents).
Your APP may talk with you about pelvic exercises. They also may recommend an incontinence clamp. It puts slight pressure on the urethra to stop urine from leaking.
Urinary incontinence may start after a radical prostatectomy (PROS-tuh-TEK-toh-mee). This often happens right after the surgery but almost goes away within 12 months.
At MSK, 9 out of every 10 people have no urinary problems within a few months after their prostate surgery.
If incontinence does not go away after 12 months, you may need reconstruction surgery.
Our urologic surgeons have treatments for urinary problems after prostate cancer treatment. A urologic surgeon is a doctor with special training in surgery on the genitourinary (jeh-nih-toh-YOOR-ih-nayr-ee) system. This includes the bladder, kidney, penis, prostate, and testicles.
Your care team will help you decide which of these options is right for you:
- Urethral bulking helps thicken the wall of the urethra, the tube that carries urine out of the body. This helps prevent leaking. A urologic surgeon injects (puts in) a fluid called a bulking agent into your urethra.
- Artificial urinary sphincter (AUS) is a silicone rubber device. It fits around your urethra and urinary sphincter (ss-FINK-tur). It helps you hold and let go of urine (pee).
- Male sling surgery helps with mild (not bad) to moderate stress urinary incontinence after prostate treatment. The sling is a strip of mesh that acts like a hammock. It’s made to lift and support your urethra. This helps your urinary sphincter stay closed and prevent leaks. Slings often are not recommended for people with severe (very bad) stress incontinence.
- An adjustable balloon is an implant that works by inflating a small balloon. The balloon squeezes the lower part of your bladder to stop urine from leaking. Your surgeon places the balloon through 2 small incisions (cuts).
It’s normal to feel nervous before follow-up visits. In the days before your appointment, schedule activities that can help distract you from worrying. Try going for walks, doing a calming exercise like yoga, or listening to a meditation. We have meditations for stress before follow-up imaging.
How we support you after treatment
Exercise physiologist Olivia Chan is among the MSK experts in rehabilitation and physical therapy who help you recover.
What support services does MSK offer after your treatment ends?
At MSK, our cancer experts are here to help you live a full and healthy life after cancer treatment. We focus on all aspects of your life, such as nutrition, emotional support, and dealing with side effects of treatment.
We’ll help you and your loved ones get the resources and care you need as you adjust to this new phase.
Your care team will teach you the right way to do pelvic floor muscle (Kegel) exercises. They can help you manage or prevent incontinence. You can also try pelvic floor physical therapy.
Your care team also may refer you to an expert in treating urinary incontinence after prostate cancer treatment.
Urinary incontinence can last for 12 months or longer. If that happens, our reconstructive urologists can help. They have special training in surgery on the urinary system. They’ll offer a care plan that’s right for you. It may include other therapies, reconstruction surgery, or both.
Supportive care is an important part of how we improve your quality of life during and after treatment. These therapies can help with side effects that happen months or years later.
Supportive care can also improve your emotional and spiritual health. MSK’s supportive care experts work with all members of your care team. They make a personal plan for you based on your goals and values.
Supportive care can help you with:
- Pain
- Fatigue (feeling very tired)
- Insomnia (trouble falling and staying asleep)
- Nausea (feeling like throwing up)
- Anxiety
Managing pain from cancer and its treatment is an important part of cancer care. MSK was the first cancer center in the country to have a program just for treating pain in people with cancer.
Our pain experts will help relieve or manage pain after surgery. They can help while you’re still in the hospital, and after you’re home.
We also have experts who manage the symptoms and side effects of cancer treatment, such as nausea during chemotherapy.
Cancer treatment can affect your digestion (how your body breaks down the food you eat). It can change your taste, how you can eat, and how hungry you are.
Our clinical dietitian nutritionists will answer your questions about what you can and should eat. You can meet with them in-person or by telemedicine. They can help with:
- Planning healthy meals at home.
- Advice about special diets.
- Working around food allergies.
- Managing weight loss or gain.
- Managing loss of appetite (not feeling hungry).
- Lowering your risk for other health problems after treatment.
Our Integrative Medicine and Wellness Service offers complementary, natural, and holistic treatments. They include acupuncture, meditation, massage therapy, yoga, and exercise.
Cancer therapies can cause side effects. Without using prescription drugs, integrative therapies can help improve side effects of treatment.
Integrative medicine is available in New York City, New Jersey, Westchester, and on Long Island.
We offer counseling and support to help you manage anxiety, depression, anger, or loneliness. There are individual and group counseling sessions, both in person and through telemedicine visits. Counseling is open to you and your family, separately or together.
We also run support groups and programs if you want to talk with other people going through a similar experience. Our social workers can offer information about how to talk about your diagnosis with family members, work colleagues, and friends.
Innovations at MSK
Our experts are constantly uncovering new methods of treating prostate cancer and managing side effects. Explore prostate cancer news from MSK.
Learn about the latest research on acupuncture from MSK. We’re studying how acupuncture can help with the side effects of cancer and its treatment.
