Treatment decisions made. I think!!!

Hi Fifefella,

It’s always better once you’ve made the decision. As you’ll already know probably I had no choice  and had to go down the HT/RT route. RT wasn’t an issue for me really but HT is a real pain.

Dont know if I’ve seen you at the Maggies Group at the Vic, if not why not come along and speak to the guys there that have had surgery. It’s good now that they have a surgeon at the Vic who can perform the surgery, and the members who have had the Op speak very highly of him.

I don’t think there’s any members who have LDR Brachytherapy unfortunately.

if you ARE interested, the Prostate Cancer Support Group meets once a month and the next meeting is a week today at 2pm.

Cheers

Derek

Hello! Sorry to hear you’re on the same journey as many of us have been on. Personally I opted for more invasive approach with surgery based on the fact it was recommended for patients below the age of 60, because of the probability of secondary primary is occurring later on in life. Surgery does have benefits in terms of psychology that the cancer has been resected plus the fact you can have radiotherapy treatment as a Plan B. Should you need it in the future. I’ve been fortunate with my surgery with a very good outcome and excellent consonance with only the odd drip or leak very occasionally, but never a problem when I’m at the gym doing heavy weights or such like only if I let my bladder get really full or I’m going in for something like dental surgery and I’m a bit nervous and my bladder is a bit twitchy but nothing too out of the ordinary to be honest. 

I’m also under 60 and went for surgery on the basis I wanted it out and it kept options open for the future. In the nurses words ‘you’re young and fit’ ! Not sure i agreed with that but then later on realised I was the youth policy! It’s early days for me 8 weeks post surgery and I’m now back to work  a long way from normality but improving. Good luck with whatever decision you make. I do suggest getting in touch with a local support group and going along as I have found it helpful to talk to others who have been on the journey. 

Like the other replies I opted for RARP and have had good results so far - early days as only 4.5 weeks post op but it's looking good.

I am 62 and got the same advice "you are young and reasonably fit (hahaha)" told to me by the female surgeon who looked to be about 18 :)

Although someone else said that the chances of getting prostate cancer a second time if you were 'young' were high, two different oncologists and a surgeon I spoke to said that detection of a brand new cancer after the initial treatment was very very rare.

Instead, the normal cause of any future biochemical failure was almost always because the initial treatment had failed. That could be because of distant mets, radio resistance, positive margins or something else.

So, whilst I agree that it's totally reasonable to conclude that if you still have a prostate, you can get prostate cancer a 2nd time, my takeaway is that recurrence (by definition) is much more likely as the result of the initial treatment failing rather than because an independently new disease developed.