Advanced prostate cancer in dad need support

User

Posted 14 Apr 2022 at 23:09

Hello

My dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer last year. He was given extreme radiation therapy for 5 days and hospitalized. After put on enzalutamide and hormone injections. A year later the PSA levels are rising. He's well within self and living life to the best of his ability.

Concerned tho as won't complainant recently had incidents were legs are giving way on him. Now PSA rise and docs mentioned steroids.

Please give me some honest feedback on what I should expect.

Thanks

User

Posted 15 Apr 2022 at 01:24

How old is your dad? Advanced prostate cancer is not going to be good news with a rising PSA but some can live a long time.

What is causing the legs to collapse, if this is spinal chord compression it is very serious and needs an A&E visit immediately, with an explanation to the triage nurse that this is very serious. Nurse may not know that spinal chord compression is likely in prostate cancer patients.

Dave

User

Posted 15 Apr 2022 at 10:11

Dad is 73 years old. No pain that he says just seen oncology other day and psa at 4 was under 0. He says the leg just goes now and again but no pain. Told him to mention to docs but that's up to him can't push it. It's in his spine which had radiation therapy for. Lungs pelvis ribs basically all over. Been on hormone injections and enzalutamide tablets and so far ( last year) all been positive. Just concerned that it's risen and docs said more test next step could be steroids. Is that a good thing or bad if going onto steroids.

Help any response appropriated .....

User

Posted 15 Apr 2022 at 15:06

This does sound very much as if it might be SCC. He needs to get URGENT medical advice. Don't delay.

Best wishes,

Chris

User

Posted 15 Apr 2022 at 18:57

I have just looked up SCC. This site suggests that steroids are the first line of treatment. When you mentioned steroids in your first post I could not think of what role they played in cancer treatment but now I can what they are used for. The fact the medics know the cancer is in the spine means they are on to this, but he needs to make sure they know exactly how severe his condition is. SCC could lead to paralysis from the waist down, so he needs to be on the ball.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/coping/physically/spinal-cord-compression/treatment

Dave

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