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Re: Why do Active Surveillance articles favor men 65+ with low risk diagnosis?
Yes Tom. My mind set is get surgery sooner than later and make sure you have a good experienced surgeon. For an example I had some leakage where the urethra was attached to the bladder. They adjusted the catheter and it stopped. The surgeon said he only put 4 sutures in. They have found to many sutures weaken the bond. I have no incontinence now and I am sure it is do to attention to little details.
Re: Why do Active Surveillance articles favor men 65+ with low risk diagnosis?
Bruce,
Would you care to share more detals of your diagnosis with us - number and percentage of positive cores, Gleason Score etc. I ask because these are all issues that are relevant in a decision making process. Relying on a PSA only can be misleading. Can you also confirm that, as implied by your post, you only had a biopsy after watching your PSA rise and fall for four years?
There are two points that are required to bring the point you are making into focus:
1. You say I now feel I had cancer 4 years prior to surgery... There is a general agreement that most varieties of prostate cancer (other than the aggressive forms) take between 15 and 20 years to develop to a stage when a random biopsy can identify the disease. So every one of us diagnosed with the disease was likely to have had the disease four years before diagnosis.
2. The second point is that there are no guarantees in any aspect of this disease. There are many studies that show that some men who see to exhibit that they are "cured" i.e.
they have surgery within six weeks of their intial diagnosis for what appears to be an early diagnosis,
they have post surgical pathology that shows no indication of spread beyond the capsule,
their PSA is undetectable after surgery
will still have a biochemical failure - a rising PSA up to 25 years after their apprently successful therapy. That is why we all have PSA tests for the rest of our lives after having been diagnosed with prostatee cancer.
