Prostate Cancer Survivors

 

YANA - YOU ARE NOT ALONE NOW

PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT SITE

 

 

This forum is for the discussion of anything to do with Prostate Cancer.
There are only four rules:

  • No fundraisers, no commercials (although it is OK to recommend choices of treatment or medical people based on your personal research; invitations to participate in third-party surveys are also acceptable, provided there is no compensation to YANA);
  • No harvesting e-mail addresses for Spam;
  • No insults or flaming - be polite and respectful at all times and understand that there may be a variety of points of view, all of which may have some validity;
  • Opinions are OK, but please provide as much factual evidence as possible for any assertions that you are making

Failure to abide by these simple rules will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your posting privileges.

Since this is an International Forum, please specify your location in your post.

General Forum
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
View Entire Thread
Re: Radiation Treatments Started

Both my surgeon and RO were very surprised and concerned that what was thought to be low grade/low involvement, contained cancer turned out to be a higher grade, 50% involved, with multiple positive margins and ECE/bladder neck. The non-focal aspect was also a concern. I am only 57 and with how many cancer had changed rather quickly , my RO felt the risk of recurrence was at the higher end of range of what the tables indicated (at values noted in the first part of the thread). We discussed the option of waiting until the PSA is detectable versus doing the RT while the cells are likely still in the prostate bed. As I read through what happened to most patients in similar circumstances, it seemed many went to RT/ADT combo following PSA rise at about the 2 year mark. So I opted for the more aggressive "do it now" decision. I think BillG stated it well in his reply when he termed it timely adjuvant rather than salvage.

Some related posting info from the www.HealingWell.com which Terry so kindly referred me to:
Several studies recently have found a big advantage to adjuvant radiation (now) over salvage radiation (waiting for PSA to rise). Several studies have showed significant improvement in PSA progression-free survival with adjuvant radiation:
http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/content/107383-134
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23084481
http://jurology.com/article/S0022-5347(08)03059-0/abstract

It also seems to be important to get enough radiation: 70 Gy seems to work significantly better than 60 Gy:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22795730

RETURN TO HOME PAGE LINKS