Symptoms, Treatment, and Care Options

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On September 18, 2025

At this point, most people will need to take one day at a time. Oftentimes, there will be good days alternating with not-so-great days. There’s no one standard answer for how someone should be treated and cared for in their final months, or even days, with this disease.

“Every patient has their own priorities in terms of how they’d like that process to go,” says Michael J. Morris, MD, a genitourinary medical oncologist and Prostate Cancer Section Head at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “The first step is to listen to the patient and see what their goals are.” Some men wish to stay in a home setting for as long as possible, receiving treatment for pain, anxiety, and nausea, or other discomfort, while others opt for inpatient hospice care, he says.

“Others may not need or not be considering hospice, and they may say … ‘I’ll live my life to its fullest now and when I’m more symptomatic and need more support, then I’ll be in touch,’” Dr. Morris says.

Treatment at this stage is not focused on curing the cancer but on treating symptoms and providing comfort. The choices will depend on your goals and the state of your overall health.

Palliative Care

Palliative care is specialized medical care aimed at providing support, comfort, and management of symptoms such as pain, fatigue, or emotional distress to people living with a serious illness. It can be provided alongside other treatments and often includes a team of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and chaplains. Palliative care is not end-of-life care. It can be started at any time during cancer treatment.

“We [also] work with psychologists and psychiatrists in order to treat the emotional aspects of being at that point in your life,” Morris says. “The particular blend [of care] depends on the patient himself and how they’re feeling and what they would like that experience to look like.”

Pain medications like steroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), drugs for nerve pain, opioids, or muscle relaxants
Anti-nausea medications
Radiation therapy to treat areas that are causing pain
Relaxation techniques like guided imagery, deep breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation to reduce stress, anxiety, pain, and even nausea and vomiting
Talk therapy

Hospice Care

Hospice care is reserved for people whose illness can no longer be controlled and are expected to live no more than six months. Hospice care does not provide anticancer therapy. It focuses entirely on comfort and making the person’s quality of life the best possible. Services are provided at home or in a hospice facility and include pain management, counseling, spiritual support, and help for caregivers.

“When you’ve exhausted all therapeutic options for prostate cancer, or any cancer, the number one thing I advocate for is for my patients to get into hospice as early as possible,” Pienta says. “In this country, we utilize hospice way later than we should.”

Getting into hospice early means more support at home or in a facility to handle problems as they come up, like pain and loss of body function. “That optimizes the quality of their lives for the life they have left to live,” Pienta says.