Urologic Cancers

Wayne Health’s highly experienced Urologic Cancer specialists have leading expertise in the diagnosis, study and treatment of cancers of the prostate, kidney and bladder as well as adrenal, penile and testicular cancer. These types of cancers are all fairly common and sometimes pose serious health risks making it critical to find the right place for your care.

Because of our affiliation with the Karmanos Cancer Institute, the only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center in metro Detroit, we offer the most advanced care for all urologic cancers. Our collaborative, multidisciplinary approach allows us to offer optimal care that is personalized and individualized. The solutions we provide, depending on need, range from simple monitoring of cancer (as in active surveillance for prostate cancer) to complex combinations of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and immuno-oncology. We offer minimally invasive laparoscopic and robotic surgery, image-guided ablation of tumors, and standard surgical approaches to cancer. We also offer many clinical trials that may help you while potentially adding to the storehouse of medical knowledge that may help others in the future. We help our patients navigate to the most appropriate and individual form of treatment in order to achieve optimal outcomes.

• Prostate cancer
• Kidney cancer
• Bladder cancer
• Penile cancer
• Testicular cancer
• Adrenal cancer

Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy and second leading cause of cancer death in U.S. men. Our philosophy in the management of prostate cancer includes:

• prevention of prostate cancer
• early detection of prostate cancer
• careful assessment of risk before recommending approach
• shared decision-making with our patients
• active surveillance where appropriate
• robotic prostatectomy
• cryotherapy
• radiation therapy (external beam and HDR)
• aggressive, multidisciplinary approach to higher risk or higher stages of prostate cancer including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, immuno-oncology, and androgen deprivation
• salvage cryoablation for radiation recurrence
• salvage prostatectomy for radiation recurrence
• basic science and clinical research studies to improve patient outcomes

This comprehensive, coordinated approach allows for a personalized approach to management and treatment of prostate cancer. We promote active surveillance wherever possible, but at the same time recommend aggressive treatment when needed.

Kidney cancer (renal carcinoma) is curable by surgical and ablative approaches when confined to the kidney. Our approach ranges from observation to image-guided ablation, robotic or open partial nephrectomy, or radical nephrectomy when appropriate. For more advanced stages, we collaborate with our medical oncology colleagues to offer multidisciplinary approaches or participation in clinical trials. Wayne Health urologists will help you choose the most appropriate path toward the best outcomes.

At Wayne Health, we will take steps to determine your stage accurately. Your biopsies will be reviewed by expert urologic pathologists and your imaging studies will be reviewed by our expert radiologists. We will then recommend the most appropriate approach to treatment taking into account chance for cure and avoidance of side effects. We offer various localized bladder cancer treatments including cystoscopic tumor resection or laser ablation, treatments of the bladder with instillation of chemotherapy, immunotherapy or clinical trial agents.

For more advanced disease, options include chemoradiation or removal of the bladder with urinary diversion.  Choices for urinary diversion include simple conduits, continent abdominal reservoirs or neobladders attached to the native urethra for more natural urination. We offer clinical trials and multidisciplinary treatment in collaboration with or medical oncology and radiation oncology colleagues.

Penile cancer

Penile carcinoma constitutes less than one percent of all malignancies among United States’ male population. It is most commonly diagnosed during the sixth and seventh decades of life. Wayne Health is a destination for rare cancers such as penile cancer.

We offer expert management of men with testicular cancer. As with the other types of cancer, accurate staging is appropriate as testicular cancer sometimes spreads to lymph nodes in the abdomen or other organs throughout the body. After determination of stage and type of testis cancer, we consult with the multidisciplinary team to recommend the best approach. Sometimes removal of the testis with subsequent long-term monitoring is all that is needed. Sometimes chemotherapy is recommended. In other cases, major surgery, called retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) is needed for testis cancer spread to lymph nodes in the retroperitoneal area of the abdomen.

Wayne Health physicians and researchers are also teaching and research faculty at Wayne State University School of Medicine. We conduct basic, translational and clinical research. This makes the latest treatments and clinical trials available to you sooner than other providers without a medical school affiliation, and often before FDA approval or commercial availability.

We take a bench-to-bedside approach for the study of cancer. Our research laboratories conduct experiments on cancer cells, mouse models, and human tissues. This research can lead to new approaches taken with our patients. These newer approaches involve clinical trials and can lead to new standards for the future.

For more information, please visit the links below at the WSU School of Medicine and Karmanos Cancer Institute.