Prostate Cancer

OHSU’s Dr. Christopher Amling and Dr. Jen-Jane Liu bring patients advanced skills in robotic surgery for urologic cancers, including kidney cancer.
Dr. Christopher Amling and Dr. Jen-Jane Liu are expert robotic surgeons, offering exceptional precision for prostate cancer surgery.

The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute offers you complete care for all stages of prostate cancer. Our expert providers will tailor treatment to your specific needs, whether you need surgery or just close monitoring. 

We offer you:

  • Providers who are internationally recognized experts in prostate cancer.
  • Doctors who are also researchers doing groundbreaking studies on treating this complex cancer.
  • One of the nation’s most experienced teams in robotic surgery, which can help protect erectile function and urinary control.
  • Calypso radiation therapy to spare healthy tissue.
  • A team-based approach, with a range of doctors, nurses and others working together on your care.
  • Precise diagnostic methods so you can be confident in your test results and treatment recommendations.
  • Many additional services, including clinical trials and a support group. 

Read more about OHSU’s urologic cancer services

What makes us different

Leadership: Our team includes some of the world’s leading experts on prostate cancer. Their work has attracted millions of dollars in endowments and research grants. Successes include: 

  • Helping win FDA approval for new prostate cancer therapies 
  • Leading clinical trials to test and refine treatments
  • Publishing hundreds of papers on discoveries
  • Serving on a national Dream Team for prostate cancer research
  • Researching prostate cancer in multiple Knight Cancer Institute labs

National research group: We’re among 11 top cancer centers in the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium. We are working with Memorial Sloan Kettering, Johns Hopkins and others to turn discoveries into better care.

Top honors: We’re the only hospital between Seattle and Sacramento to be named a Comprehensive Cancer Center, the National Cancer Institute’s highest designation for research excellence. 

A world center for research: Our Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center is on a mission to develop new ways to find cancer earlier.

Complete care

Experience: Our team does hundreds of robotic prostate removal (prostatectomy) procedures a year. Robotic precision combined with our surgical skill allows for minimal nerve damage to spare erectile function. Our doctors also offer second opinions for patients seeking more information on their diagnosis or treatment plan.

Advanced training: Our prostate cancer doctors are fellowship-trained, with hands-on education at some of the top cancer centers in the country.

Team of experts: Your team may include a urologist, urologic surgeon, medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, radiologist, pathologist and prostate cancer nurse. They are all dedicated to giving you first-rate care. We offer a prostate cancer clinic where patients can conveniently see many specialists in one visit. The team then meets after seeing patients to create a treatment plan.

Tumor board meetings: For the most challenging cases, our team meets every other week to examine scans and test results. We discuss findings and work together to recommend the best treatment approach for each patient. 

All types: Our expert providers treat all forms of prostate cancer, including:

  • Rare forms of prostate cancer
  • Prostate cancer that resists hormone therapy
  • Advanced or aggressive prostate cancer
  • Prostate cancer that has returned

We are pioneering new treatments for advanced cancer. We also offer options for longer-term management of incurable prostate cancer.

Help with appointments: A prostate cancer nurse navigator will answer your questions and arrange appointments. You save time and energy so you can focus on treatment.

Support: We offer a monthly support group for prostate cancer patients and their families. 

Dr. Alexandra Sokolova meets with a patient in a clinic.
Dr. Alexandra Sokolova, M.D., is a specialist in treating patients with prostate cancer. She has particular expertise in the genetics of cancer.

Advanced technology

As a Knight Cancer Institute patient, you have access to the latest treatments and technologies.

  • Robotic surgery: Our surgeons are national leaders in robotic prostatectomy, a minimally invasive approach that allows us to remove the prostate through tiny incisions.  
  • Multiparametric MRI: Our team uses this new technology to tell healthy prostate tissue from unhealthy tissue with exceptional precision.
  • MRI-guided biopsy: We offer both MRI fusion and MRI-directed biopsy. These offer the highest level of accuracy when taking a tissue sample for testing.
  • Image-guided radiation: We were the first health center in Oregon to offer Calypso image-guided radiation therapy. This system precisely tracks the prostate gland during treatment, sparing healthy tissue.  

Clinical trials and research

OHSU scientists lead the field in the study of prostate cancer. Patients have access to promising new treatments through our network of clinical trials. We are also pursuing novel ways to develop the the treatments of tomorrow. 

Clinical trials: We offer clinical trials that offer eligible patients a chance to try a treatment that is not widely available. Your care team will talk with you about whether a trial is right for you.

Research: 

  • We tested the hormone therapy enzalutamide, now a standard treatment for certain types of advanced prostate cancer. 
  • We ran clinical trials of Provenge and were among the first U.S. hospitals to offer the vaccine to patients.
  • We are at the forefront of research into a second-generation hormone therapy, apalutamide (Erleada). It may stop the spread of prostate cancer in patients whose tumors resist other treatments.
  • The Beer and Qian Lab focuses on prostate cancer at the molecular level. 
  • Scientists in the OHSU Alumkal Lab are breaking ground with targeted therapies that may stop prostate cancer that doesn’t respond to hormone therapy.
  • A research team won a $1 million award for a clinical trial for patients with advanced prostate cancer. The team is building evidence that gut bacteria can make immune therapy more effective. 
  • Our researchers wrote some of the most important papers on prostate cancer in 2018, according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

For patients

Call 503-494-7999 to:

  • Request an appointment
  • Seek a second opinion
  • Ask questions

Location

Knight Cancer Institute, South Waterfront

Center for Health & Healing, Building 2
­3485 S. Bond Ave.
Portland, OR 97239

Free parking for patients and visitors

Refer a patient

Cancer clinical trials

Clinical trials allow patients to try a new test or treatment.

Read more

Stay informed

News: Read about research breakthroughs, patient care and many other topics on our OHSU News site.