Metastatic prostate cancer

Metastatic prostate cancer is when prostate cancer cells have spread outside the prostate to other parts of your body. It is also known as advanced or secondary prostate cancer. 

Your cancer may be advanced when it is first diagnosed, or it may have come back or spread some time after your first diagnosis.

• Treatment for early-stage prostate cancer sometimes does not remove all the cancer cells. These cells may be tiny and cannot be picked up on scans. With time these cancer cells can grow and spread.
• The cancer did not give you any problems or symptoms and so it wasn’t diagnosed until it had grown enough to spread outside of the prostate.

Read more about why cancer comes back after treatment.

Metastatic prostate cancer can affect one or more parts of your body. The most common places for prostate cancer to spread to are your bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may also spread to other parts of the body such as your
lungs, liver or brain.

The metastatic cancer is made up of prostate cancer cells, even if it is found in other parts of your body. It will be treated with prostate cancer treatments.

Medical content updated from our 'Understanding metastatic prostate cancer' booklet (2025), reviewed by Dr. Lynda Corrigan, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Sinead Feeney, Urology CNS and Colette Grant, Irish Cancer Society Daffodil Centre Nurse.