Best Treatment Options for Recurrence After Surgery for Prostate Cancer?
My husband had a radical prostatectomy 1 and 1/2 years ago. His PSA has doubled 3 times in the past 6 months. We’ve been advised to wait another 3 months and follow up with radiation. I read and the side effects are sounding so scary. He’s been through so much already. Wondering what experiences you’d be willing to share regarding radiation and its effects or if your PSA climbed how you treated it. Thank you.
Hi Heidi. Sorry to hear about your husband's recurrence. Please know that many men here have been there and come out the other side. In fact, two of our contributors, Len Smith (https://prostatecancer.net/community-advocates/len-smith) and Dennis Golden (https://prostatecancer.net/community-advocates/dennis-golden), had recurrences. Both had radiation and Lupron therapy and have had undetectable PSA ever since.
Is there a reason your husband's doctor wants to wait three months before taking further action? I ask because if the decision has been made that action is necessary waiting only seems to increase the possibility of further cancer spread. In addition, are any tests plan to check on whether the cancer is contained to the prostate bed area?
Hopefully others will chime in with their experiences and please don't hesitate to keep us posted or ask further questions. Wishing both of you the best. Richard (ProstateCancer.net Team)
I couldn’t go in and ask anything because of covid. I plan on calling. I think he was in shock and didn’t know what to say. This is the third time in 7 months it’s gone up. Now they want to wait til Oct for the Axium scan.
Hi Heidi. I'm all for an Axumin scan or what is know as a PSMA scan for detecting any metastatic cancer. In fact, I wrote this article about Axumin: https://prostatecancer.net/clinical/axumin-early-detection and this article on the PSMA test (it is harder to get): https://prostatecancer.net/clinical/psma-imaging-scan . Maybe your husband can get onto a wait list for any openings due to cancellations. Please feel free to keep us posted on how things are going. Best, Richard (ProstateCancer.net Team)
My recurrence of prostate cancer was described as an aggressive cancer and I was given 39 radiation treatments, which I just finished last Friday and a Lupron shot. Scheduled to see my Urologist in 2 weeks.
, I am now at the stage of the wait and see. The Lupron shot will still keep my PSA low, however my testosterone is starting its journey up again. When that happens and the starts actively feeding the cancer it will be interesting to see how quickly if at all the cancer starts moving up. My oncologist says there is a 60-70% chance they got the cancer, and my Urologist says he thinks off the record that it is just sleeping. Once the PSA GETS TO .2-.5 they want to start me on some meds that it seems the side effects are worse than the cancer, plus they are of that anti-hormonal family and that sucks. So, I just don’t know, chemo? Perhaps or if the cancer lands some place, fight it there. I’m just not sure. The next 6-8 months should be interesting. Good luck on your journey. What’s next for you? 
Similar here as well - had surgery in 2013. Radiation and Lupron in 2018. Then a rising PSA in 2023 resulted in a PMSA PET scan which found a small spot on my hip bone - Was treated in mid-September of 2023. So far in 2024 no trace of a rising PSA - Hang in there. Dennis
Active surveillance
