What to Know About Lymph Node... Health Article

Prostate cancer that has spread needs to be treated differently than if it hasn’t spread. For instance, men whose cancer has spread usually do not have surgery to remove the prostate. So before you can begin your treatment, your doctor needs to learn whether or not your cancer has spread.

Your Gleason score and PSA levels can help your doctor know the chances of whether your cancer has spread. If your Gleason score is low (2, 3, or 4), the chance that cancer has spread to the lymph nodes is low. The risk for spread to the lymph nodes is also low if your PSA level is less than 10 ng/mL. If your Gleason score is higher than 4 or if your PSA level is higher than 10 ng/mL, your doctor will likely recommend that you have some lymph nodes removed and checked for cancer.

Right now, the only way to check the lymph nodes for cancer is to remove them through surgery. Removing the lymph nodes is called lymph node dissection. It is also called lymph node biopsy. Once they are removed, a pathologist looks at them under a microscope to check for cancer.

When you have the lymph nodes removed depends on the type of treatment your doctor recommends. If your doctor is recommending surgery to treat your cancer, you may have the lymph nodes removed at the same time. Your doctor will remove the lymph nodes and have the pathologist look at them immediately. If they show cancer, your doctor may stop the surgery there and not remove your prostate. But some surgeons will go ahead and remove the prostate if there are only small amounts of cancer in the lymph nodes, so you should talk about this with your doctor before you have surgery. If the lymph nodes don’t show cancer, your doctor can continue the surgery and remove your prostate.