Treatment for prostate cancer
There are a number of different treatments for prostate cancer. You may have a choice of treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy. Or your doctor might suggest monitoring your cancer instead of treatment straight away. Your doctor will explain all your treatment options. They will help you to choose the right treatment for you.
This page is about treatment for people who have prostate cancer that hasn’t spread to other parts of the body. This is also called non metastatic prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer that spreads to other parts of the body is called metastatic prostate cancer. We have separate information about treatment for metastatic prostate cancer.
Go to our information about metastatic prostate cancer
Your doctor might not recommend treatment straight away. Sometimes they may recommend monitoring your cancer. You only start treatment if the cancer begins to grow. Depending on your situation, they may call this:
active surveillance
watchful waiting
If you need treatment, you might have one of the following treatment options:
Surgery is one of the main treatments for prostate cancer. You usually have a radical prostatectomy. This means removing the whole of the prostate gland.
Read about surgery for prostate cancer
You might have radiotherapy as your main treatment. Radiotherapy uses high energy waves similar to x-rays to kill prostate cancer cells. External radiotherapy uses a machine outside the body to direct radiation beams at the cancer.
Read about external radiotherapy for prostate cancer
You might have a type of internal radiotherapy called brachytherapy for prostate cancer. This means you have a radioactive source inside the prostate. The radioactive source releases radiation to destroy the prostate cancer cells.
Read about brachytherapy for prostate cancer
Prostate cancer usually depends on to grow. Hormone therapy blocks or lowers the amount of testosterone in the body. You might have hormone therapy with radiotherapy for prostate cancer that hasn't spread to another part of your body.
Read about hormone therapy for prostate cancer
Your doctor recommends whether you need treatment. And if you do, they recommend which treatment options are best for you. This depends on which Cambridge prognostic group (CPG) you are in:
You might not have treatment straight away. Instead, your doctor will recommend monitoring your cancer closely. They then discuss treatment with you if the cancer changes in the future. This is called active surveillance.
If instead you decide to have treatment straight away, it might include one of the following:
surgery to remove your prostate
external radiotherapy
internal radiotherapy (brachytherapy)
You usually have a choice between:
active surveillance
surgery to remove your prostate
external radiotherapy on its own or with hormone therapy
internal radiotherapy (brachytherapy) with or without external radiotherapy and hormone therapy
Your doctor recommends you have one of the following treatments:
surgery to remove your prostate
external radiotherapy and hormone therapy
internal radiotherapy (brachytherapy) with external radiotherapy and hormone therapy
They may suggest active surveillance if you don’t want to have treatment straightway.
Your doctor usually recommends that you have treatment. You might have:
surgery to remove your prostate
external radiotherapy with hormone therapy
internal radiotherapy (brachytherapy) with external radiotherapy and hormone therapy
chemotherapy with a drug called docetaxel
hormone therapy
Your doctor might ask if you’d like to take part in a clinical trial. Doctors and researchers do trials to make existing treatments better and develop new treatments.
Find out about the latest research into prostate cancer
You might want to read about the different types of treatments for prostate cancer. We have information about:
Last reviewed: 18 Jun 2025
Next review due: 18 Jun 2028
You might have active surveillance if you’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer that doesn't need treatment straight away. Watchful waiting is another way of monitoring your cancer.
Surgery is one of the main treatments for prostate cancer. You usually have a radical prostatectomy. This means removing the whole of the prostate gland.
Radiotherapy uses high energy waves similar to x-rays to kill prostate cancer cells. You might have external beam radiotherapy or internal radiotherapy (brachytherapy).
Prostate cancer usually depends on testosterone to grow. Hormone therapy blocks or lowers the amount of testosterone in the body.
Chemotherapy is a common treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. The most common type is docetaxel. You usually have it together with hormone therapy.
The TNM staging is a way of describing how far prostate cancer has grown. It stands for Tumour, Node, Metastasis.
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What to ask your doctor about clinical trials.
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