Prostate cancer treatment?
I am 70. Diagnosed with a 4+3 score. A PET scan showed it had not spread out of the prostate.
I am on hormone therapy and am due to start radiation in a month 5 days a week for 5 and a half weeks. Trying to decide whether to have it removed or go through the radiation. Any opinions??
Hi
I am glad you reached out. There are many options and it can be overwhelming. While I hope our community members respond here with their personal experiences, I am sending over this article that shares some of our community feedback: https://prostatecancer.net/living/first-treatment-options and here is an article from one of our advocates: https://prostatecancer.net/living/my-treatment-choice. I hope this is helpful for you. Please keep us posted on how you are doing. Jill, prostatecancer.net team Monty, I am new to the forum but I can tell you that I had contained prostate cancer. At age 66 my psa was at 4.5. Biopsy showed no cancer. A year later psa was 5.1. CT scan showed a spot…. And a biopsy of that specific spot showed 3 cancer areas. Two were rated as 4’s one was 5. Surgeon recommended removal but after further study and consultation with my urologist ( my favorite doctor that I don’t like to see) I went with radiation seed implant and then 5 days a week radiation for 28 treatments. By the time my seeds were implanted my psa was 11.5.
Seed implant and radiation were not near as bad as I expected. The worst part was not holding my grand kids in my lap for 6 months. By the time radiation was over my psa was below 1.
March 30th (2024) marked 1 year since the seed implant. My psa is 0.3. I turned 70 in February. Right now, if I had it to do over I would follow the same path. My psa dropped faster than some of my friends that have had the same treatments…I think that was just an undeserved God thing.
Kenthanks for sharing your experience. It sounds like the seed implant went well, I am so glad this treatment helped you. Jill, prostatecancer.net team that is great news Ken
😀
Just had mine removed waiting for pathology results. But I wish I would have done something else. The leakage is driving me crazy I’m able to hold it at night on day 2 I’m on day 3 now I still leak walking so much. I’m sure the cancer is gone but. The leaking is driving myself crazy.
Hang in there! From my experience, you are doing very well so early in the recovery process. It may take a few months, but my guess is you will likely be fully continent again eventually. really you had it removed? I’m on 4 now what I notice is I can only hold very very little. Now I pee a stream. It’s just life changing. To me. From knowing in February to March getting it removed instead of radiation. I don’t know maybe I should be more patient and thank god I’m alive. My wife has been very understanding.
Hi Monty,
Here is a good website to compare odds of cure for the major treatment paths. You have to determine your stage, low risk, intermediate, or high risk (risk of recurrence). So if you are intermediate, pull up the intermediate chart and you can see the odds of 10-20 yr survival, etc. based on the treatment you pick.https://www.prostatecancerfree.org/compare-prostate-cancer-treatments/
It is best viewed on computer or just print it on paper. Not so viewable on phone.
To make the graphs easier to read, i drew a dot on the endpoints of the elipses, and then drew a line through the dots. This turns the elipses into lines.
Also be aware the the graphs don’t show any salvage radiation benefit. This would boost the surgery odds up a bit.
And, this is a very dysfunctional industry from my view. Loads of bad info mixed in with the good info. Same with the docs. Some of them are more dangerous than the cancer.
