Where to find top oncologists that specialise in prostate cancer?
Looking for a neutral oncologist who would not push a specific treatment, but instead evaluate neutrally.
I wanted to get opinion of Mark Scholz, but unfortunately they don't take patients overseas.
Any other high standing oncologists you could recommend for a neutral, third person perspective of best treatment strategy?
My stats
59yr, Gleason 4+3=7 (confirmed by second opinion at JH), PSA7.8, T2c.
Currently evaluating brachy or cyberknife, but open to other radiation treatments and even surgery.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
My husband was diagnosed January 2014, 64 yrs old. Had a radical prostatectomy pT4pN1pMx + bladder neck. Pet showed Mets to spine and ribs. I prayed and researched for only the best specialists, not a facility. I found Dr. Charles Myers from Charlottesville, VA. He treated my husband for three years until retirement and referred us to Dr. Oliver Sartor at Tulane Medical, who has been overseeing my husband’s care since. Both doctors are brilliant and dedicated to advanced prostate cancer. My husband’s cancer has just now showed up in his bones again early this year. He is about to undergo docetaxel chemo for the first time. Dr. Myers treated him Xofigo for the Mets, Zytiga & prednisone & Luprone. He also put him on hormone patches everyday and for two years, had me administer Luekine shots to build his immune system. Dr. Sartor took over and has been maintaining him since. Dr. Sartor along with Dr. Michael Morris from Sloan Kettering NY, collaborated a clinical trial together and successfully received FDA approval for 177Lu-PSMA-617. This is a huge breakthrough. There are several protocol factors you must have undergone to qualify for the treatment. The caveat for my husband is that he has never undergone chemotherapy, which is a qualifying step to have had. So, he will soon begin to see how he responds to docetaxtel. Hopefully well, but if not, he now qualifies for 177Lu-PSMA-617 when needed.
Please do your research on specialists and try not to settle on a general broad range oncologist. We just left Tulane last week and thanked Dr. Sartor for his life dedication to Advanced PCa. He told us that there is only one thing he researches and treats…one thing only.
I truly wish you the best…
Hi
. Thank you for sharing this story. It sounds like you and your husband built quite a medical team. I'm a big fan of using medical specialists and our contributor Len wrote this article on why he uses them: https://prostatecancer.net/living/healthcare-specialist. In addition, many, including some doctors, don't realize the therapeutic benefits of Xofigo. Also, it is great to hear that your husband's treatment is on the cutting edge with the new combining of the PSMA with the Lu 177 beta particles. Wishing your husband the best moving forward and please feel free to keep us posted on how thing are going. Richard (ProstateCancer.net Team)
From my notes I made a couple months ago. Dr. Scholz is on there as like others, I called, and you need to pay an outrageous membership fee on top of the normal consult fees. There are plenty of top Urologists and Radiation Oncologists at Centers of Excellence that will be just as knowledgeable as Scholz. He's just all over YouTube so gets a lot of attention.
Doctors (*** = very strong profile, ** = good profile, ? = limited info):
These were mainly selected based on recommendations and reading conference programs looking for who the presenters were as they are typically the top professionals in their field presenting the latest research. I also cross referenced them with US News Doctor ratings.
Seattle
*** Dr. James Porter (Swedish)
** Dr. Chris Porter (VM)
Dr. William Ellis (UW)
Dr. Joe Lilly
** Dr. John Mullen (Swedish)
** Dr. Kolzowski
*** Dr. Daniel Lin (UW)
Cleveland Clinic NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE MANY INSURANCES EVEN PPO
*** Dr. Kaouk
Dr. Haber
**? Dr. Fareed
*** Dr. Stephenson
Dr. C Nguyen
Mayo Clinic Rochester MN
Dr. Frank
Dr. Chow (NO)
Univ Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston)
*** Dr. John Davis
John Hopkins (Baltimore)
** Dr. C Pavolich (SP?!)
Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles)
*** Dr. David Josephson NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE
UCLA (Los Angeles)
*** Dr. Robert Reiter (referral for surgeon?)
** Dr. Kia Michel
*** Dr. Litwin
Keck USC (Los Angeles)
Dr. Inderbir Gill (No Telehealth)
UCSF (San Francisco)
*** Dr. Peter Carroll
Northwestern (Chicago)
**? Dr. Kent Perry
Henry Ford / St. Joseph Mercy (Colorado)
**? Dr. Joshua Leese (practice 5-10 years)
Mayo Clinic Phoenix AZ
**? Dr. Robert Ferrigni
**? Dr. Paul Andrews
Central Ohio Urology Group
*** Dr. Ronney Abaza
Stanford
**? Dr. Benjamin Chung
St. Francis (Roslyn NY)
* Dr. David Samadi (SMART Surgery)
U of Colorado
*? Dr. Paul Maroni
Orange County Urology Associates
*** Dr. Sun Kim
New Jersey Urology
*** Dr. Mutahar Ahmed
--- RADIOTHERAPY ONCOLOGY ---
UCLA - Dr. Stuart Holden, Dr. Amar Kishan, Ritchell Van Dams, Tommy Jiang, Ting Martin
Bernadette M. Greenwood MSc. RT (R)(MR)
Oh, my insurance is Regence Blue Shielf PPO GOLD Level. In some cases Medicare will cover things that a good PPO won't, strangely. I know of people that specifically switched insurance carriers to one that Cleveland Clinic accepted as it is so well known for cancer treatment. I'd try to get opinions from at least 2 of the doctors I put *** by in my list. Most all will do telehealth consults these days especially post-COVID. Correction, meant to say Dr. Scholz is NOT on there due to high cost/exclusivity. Also USC doesn't do telehealth. If you opt for radiation, definitely look into a center that offers Viewray MRIdian MRI Guided SBRT.
