Seeking Advice on Lu-177 PSMA Therapy vs. Carboplatin Chemo

User

Posted 05 Sep 2024 at 10:35

Hi everyone,

I'm reaching out for some guidance and shared experiences. My father (55) was diagnosed with advanced metastatic prostate cancer at the end of 2019. Since then, he's undergone a radical prostatectomy followed by various treatments including hormone therapy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and clinical trials. Unfortunately, the most recent (his second) round of chemotherapy has stopped working, and his doctor has informed us that all traditional therapy options have been exhausted.

The doctor has now recommended starting carboplatin chemotherapy next Monday. However, during my research, I came across Lu-177 PSMA therapy, which seems to offer promising results for cases like my father's. The catch is that Lu-177 PSMA is neither funded nor available in our country, but we might be able to afford the 4-6 recommended cycles in another EU country.

Has anyone here had experience with Lu-177 PSMA therapy? How does it compare to carboplatin chemotherapy in terms of efficacy and side effects? We are very much considering this option and would appreciate any insights or personal experiences you could share.

Thank you in advance for your help and support.

User

Posted 05 Sep 2024 at 12:54

No personal experience but you may find this recent video (from a US-based doctor) helpful if you have not already come across it in your research

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKx_DckvZMU

PS - As you probably know, Pluvicto is another name for Lutetium 177

User

Posted 05 Sep 2024 at 20:48

Not many people on this site have had Lu 177. It is not funded in the UK. I found this thread on the site

https://community.prostatecanceruk.org/default.aspx?g=posts&m=281978#post281978

The costs, life expectancies will be different for everybody, along with people's own personal priorities.

In my opinion, if everything else had failed and I had the option of spending £88,000 to extend my life by four months. I think I would prefer spend all the money on whisky and enjoy myself for a few months.

Dave

User

Posted 06 Sep 2024 at 05:58

I am on the control arm of Lu 177 trial. So just getting standard treatment for now, but when things go south, it should be an option for me. So I have kept an eye on it. The trials seem to suggest genuine improvement over standard existing treatment, but we are only talking months on average rather than years, so not a game changer. That being said, one of the band members of Duran Duran, Andy Taylor, I think, has prostate cancer, was running out of options, got contacted by a US dr, who made him aware of Lu 177, and came out and said that he thought it could give him another 5 years. This was last summer. So who knows, maybe it can have better outcomes than the published trial results in some circumstances.

User

Posted 06 Sep 2024 at 09:51

The doctor in the link attached to my earlier post says that it doesn't really work at all in about one third of patients.

But at the other end of the spectrum, for about one third it works well and this can indeed mean for years rather than months in some cases. He says that it is still too soon to say how long it might work for.

One problem is that there is at the moment apparently no reliable way of predicting in advance the ones that it will benefit.

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