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Reoccurrence after 5 years

User
Posted 26 Dec 2023 at 13:22

Hello everybody happy holidays. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 57, 3+4 contained to  the prostrate. Unfortunately, five years later, now I have a reoccurrence. I chose to do external being radiation with a booster of brachytherapy, which I truly regret now. I was too afraid to have surgery and I let fear make choose wrong treatment ..So now, fortunately, i have a reoccurrence and it seems to be still in the prostrate. My PSA dropped down to 0.9 then slowly crept up to one .9 but has recently dropped down to 1.6   I met with the radiologist who did the original treatment he wants to do two more treatments of brachytherapy, which I am not going to do. I don’t trust this man. I truly do believe he should have suggested that I have surgery instead of radiation, but I’ve heard they all seem to push their specialty, which is too bad for me. So now I am left with a decision. I am meeting with a surgeon from UCLA California. They specialize in salvage prostate surgery. I’m gonna see what he says. I was leaning cryotherapy, but from what I am hearing from this Doctor Who does cryotherapy who has been with UCSF for 38 years  says with my type of reoccurrence there’s only a 50% chance of it not returning that is even with surgery and this is why they think cryotherapy would be a better option because I will have less  side effects. I guess I will have to ask the surgeon from UCLA if this is all true  I’m having a tough time dealing with this because I’m blaming myself for I’m making the right decision the first time. Hopefully this all works out. Thank you for listening. Any advice would help 

User
Posted 26 Dec 2023 at 17:13
You cannot blame the radiotherapy for your recurrence, or blame the oncologist for advising you to have RT in the first place. Even if you had chosen the RP in the first place, 30% of men go on to have a recurrence.

I am surprised that you have been told that you do definitely have a recurrence - generally speaking, a man is fine after RT as long as his PSA stays below 2.0 + nadir, which yours clearly has. Have you had some kind of scan that has confirmed you still have cancer in your prostate?

Salvage RP is considered a big risk because the chance of being left permanently incontinent is very high. Cryotherapy and the lower risk of side effects seems very appealing if you do indeed have scans confirming the recurrence.
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard
User
Posted 26 Dec 2023 at 18:35

Unfortunately all tests confirmed i caight very early  it is gleason 8 of aggressive nature

 
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