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Father with PSA 477.4 ng/ml
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Mar 28, 2019 - 2:54 pm
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Mar 28, 2019 - 3:18 pm
Hi there, Can you give us more information? Best wishes, Georges |
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Mar 28, 2019 - 4:22 pm
Thank you Georges!! Per his medical record, he has BPH. Makes us upset because his previous doctor never ordered him tests such as biopsy, ct scan etc. He had the same doctor for 17 years!! That’s negligence!! I switched him to Kaiser and he immediately got all appts. Hope all tests are ok nextweek. I read consuming fruits and vegetables high in lycopene could lower PSA level so I am making him juices/smoothie. Do you follow special diet?
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Mar 28, 2019 - 9:36 pm
Hi there, I was very lucky insofar as I had a very large but very localised cancer that was confined as far as anyone can make out to my prostate and sorrounding structures. Best wishes, Georges |
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Mar 29, 2019 - 9:40 am
t3, I understand your family worries as you are now confronting an issue with the unknown. We all have had the same experience after being diagnosed positive. In the beginning we know nothing about the cancer, and become curious on how it emerges, how it is treated or for how long more we will be living. I though in death and it took me more than 24 hours to start thinking positively. The first thought was in denying the diagnosis. I mimic the fact as being a mistake of the hospital in testing the samples of other patient thinking them to be mine. One week later the doctor confirmed the results and brief me on the issue, recommending me to do some investigations. At the time he gave me a clinical stage of T2b which was a number with no meaning for me. That is when I and my wife decided to explore the pitfalls of prostate cancer. We bought a book and took copies from extracts in the net and took notes on every detail, making it into a thick file. Radical treatments continue to be those that can provide cure; namely, Surgery and Radiotherapy. Improvements in these therapies along the 19 years, regarding the elimination of cancer, could be seen in the outcomes from radiation with newer modalities in delivering rays and Hypofractionation. Surgery became sort of robotic to shorten the time one stays in the hospital to recover. Less cutting quicker recuperation of the patient but the treatment continues to be a success if the bandit is whole within the gland. Removing it whole provides peace of mind but if cancer has escaped out of the gland, then one will confront permanent side effects caused by the surgery which will add the side effects from addition therapies required to hold the bandit. Proper image exams can facilitate in the decision of a therapy (surgery for contained and radiation to all others). Without identified targets radiation would also be throwing arrows in the dark. No one can expect hitting the bull’s eyes by chance. In this respect, PET scans are the best as they manage to identify specific cellular targets (smaller in size). MRI and CT provide structural anatomic images that can be identified as lesions, which locations leads to consider them as tumors. However, these anatomic finding have to be over 7 mm in size otherwise they are missed and invoke false negatives. https://www.insideradiology.com.au/pet-scan/ https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/rg.2017170035 http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/early/2018/11/01/jnumed.118.218495 In your shoes I would read past threads in this forum, get a book on prostate cancer (PCa) and prepare a list of questions for the next meeting with the doctor. In any case, the full diagnosis that include the image exam results and any other health condition of your dad, his age and his preferences in terms of risks from therapies, should be considered in future decisions. The doctor is just helping with suggestions based on his experience, without any responsibility in the outcomes. You should procure second opinions from various specialists. Here is an idea for your List of Questions; https://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostate-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/talking-with-doctor.html Here is a compendium on prostate cancer care and issues; Here is a link for books on PCa; https://csn.cancer.org/node/311252 Here is a link on nutrition; http://cancer.ucsf.edu/_docs/crc/nutrition_prostate.pdf
Best wishes and luck in this journey. Welcome to the board. VGama
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Apr 03, 2019 - 4:19 am
Hi there, As we have discussed in the other thread his skeleton is clean of major metastases, this is very good news. Best wishes, Georges |
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Apr 12, 2019 - 7:17 pm
He went to see His Urologist this morning. He has Stage 3 and CT scan showed it spread outside prostate. Good news not in his bones or other organs. Dr said he can’t do surgery anymore. He is starting casodex and lupron. |
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Apr 12, 2019 - 8:16 pm
I heartily recommend a file review and second opinion at a cancer center of excellence. Also, was radiation discussed? |
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Apr 12, 2019 - 8:33 pm
The doctor said radiation won’t work, and will cause unnecessary discomforts; therefore, he is doing casodex and lupron. He goes to Kaiser Permanente. I think they got their Cancer of Excellence. |
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Apr 13, 2019 - 12:33 pm
There has been a recent development about not treating the prostate with radiation after it has spread— my dad is stage 4 and they just did radiation on his prostate at our wonderful cancer center because of the newly discovered benefit. |
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Apr 14, 2019 - 12:07 am
My previous doctor and hospital told me that radiation was off the table. I got a second opinion at Dana Farber, and transferred my treatment there. I am now three weeks into an eight week course of radiation, with the hope of a cure. Getting a second opinion at a major cancer center was the smartest thing I have ever done. You really should consider doing the same.
Eric |
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Apr 13, 2019 - 3:59 pm
Hi there, How far has it spread? Best wishes, Georges |
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Apr 15, 2019 - 2:39 pm
T3 sorry your Dad and family have to deal with this. You might want to get an understanding of Adaptive ADT where you start on Lupron and add or subtract other treatment as needed. Here is an exerpt from a recent Wired April 2019 article on the subject (A Clever New Strategy for Treating Cancer, Thanks to Darwin) In 2017 a doctor in Oregon, inspired by Gatenby’s pilot study, started a prostate cancer patient on a modified version of the approach when he refused the standard continuous dosing. She has since started treating a second man using adaptive therapy. Other oncologists might be doing the same. It’s nearly impossible to know for sure, because adaptive therapy doesn’t require government approval. The protocol uses already-approved medications, and the US Food and Drug Administration doesn’t police specific dosing schedules. Experts urge caution, however. The prostate cancer study was very small, and without a randomly assigned control group the results aren’t truly reliable. While the majority of the men in the trial remain stable, four more saw their cancer progress since the paper came out. “This is an approach that now needs to be carefully studied in prospective clinical trials before it is adopted into clinical practice,” says Richard L. Schilsky, chief medical officer for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Years could pass before a large-scale test of adaptive therapy takes place. Len Lichtenfeld, interim chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, echoes Schilsky’s concerns. “Is it intriguing? Yes,” Lichtenfeld says. “But there is still a long way to go.” Gatenby agrees that adaptive therapy needs rigorous testing. He conveys a kind of humility you don’t see very often in the upper reaches of medical science. He told me multiple times that he is not an interesting subject to write about, and more than once I heard close colleagues mangle the pronunciation of his name (which is pronounced GATE-en-bee); apparently he had never corrected them. But when he believes in something, he doesn’t relent. And he believes in adaptive therapy. “He’s like a teddy bear, but underneath that soft exterior he’s made of steel,” says Athena Aktipis, who studies theoretical and cancer biology at Arizona State University and has collaborated with Gatenby. |
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May 03, 2019 - 5:34 pm
His PSA went down significantly!!! He started with casodex, but switched to zytiga. We also make sure he continue to eat healthy ( less red meats, egg, sweets). Also, my mom started juicing every morning before breakfast ( mix of celery, carrots, ginger, tomatoes). PSA results: 5/2/19 = 54.1 4/15/19 = 506.6 3/13/19= 477.4 |
Father with PSA 477.4 ng/ml and Gleason 3+4=7