Supportive care in patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

Supportive care is the comprehensive medical, nursing, psychosocial and spiritual help that the patients need besides specific anticancer treatment. Its spectrum encompasses the control of cancer-related physical symptoms and psychological, emotional, social and spiritual problems arising from cancer, as well as prevention or treatment of toxic effects induced by anticancer treatments. The scope of supportive care in metastatic prostate cancer is very wide and heterogeneous. The goals of this paper are to: a) provide an overview of supportive care as an integral part of comprehensive care of patients with metastatic prostate cancer; b) present the major supportive care problems: the control of pain, fatigue and complications of long-term hormonal treatment; and c) discuss spinal cord compression as an oncologic emergency in metastatic prostate cancer.