Metastatic cancer second opinion

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User

Posted 11 Feb 2018 at 22:32

Hello,
Ive joined this forum for some advice. My father was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer three years ago and has been treated with zoladex but nothing else currently. At the time of diagnosis his psa was only 2. After three years of treatment his psa is continuing to decrease and last week was at 0.02. When he was diagnosed he was told there were bone Mets in the hip bone and he was therefore classed as palliative. He doesn’t have any pain from the bone mets and occasionally takes normal ibuprofen or paracetamol but this is usually for just general aches and pains rather than any bone cancer type continuous pain. He had a bone scan repeated a few months ago and they said there was no change. Has anybody else had anything similar? The psa continuing to drop and lack of symptoms makes me wonder whether to suggest he gets a second opinion. The oncologist said he’s never diagnosed anyOne with such a low psa and has been keeping him on 2 monthly reviews to keep an eye on things. Any advice appreciated, thank you

User

Posted 12 Feb 2018 at 00:17

I am not sure what you are unsure about? Are you wondering if the original diagnosis was wrong? It isn’t unheard of for a man to have low PSA with bone mets - surprised that the onco didn’t explain this to you. There are at least 27 different types of prostate cancer and not all give off PSA. You could look up Si_ness on here .... he was diagnosed with a PSA of about 3 and bone mets all over his body. My father-in-law died with a PSA of 1.2 and undiagnosed mets in his liver and kidneys.

You should be very happy that dad is responding so well to the hormone treatment and being monitored so closely. Most men don’t have any pain from bone mets until much later in the disease progression.

Interesting that you have used the word ‘palliative’. The word that would usually be used with a diagnosis like your dad’s would be ‘incurable’. You will find on this forum many men who were diagnosed at a very similar stage to your dad who are still here 10 or more years later - in one case, 14 years. Celebrate that dad is doing so well, and hope that he is still living life to the full in 11 years’ time!

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

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