Prostate Cancer Risk Assessment and the UCSF-CAPRA Score

Georges Calvez
Georges Calvez Member Posts: 547 Member
Hi there,

This is a method for guessing how long you will live and how likely you are to develop metastases.
I get a 10 with a 3% chance of dying in 5 years and a 32 % chance of developing metastases, statistically I am a high risk case but I have personal reasons to believe that I will do better than that.
https://urology.ucsf.edu/research/cancer/prostate-cancer-risk-assessment-and-the-ucsf-capra-score

Best wishes,

Georges

Comments

  • hewhositsoncushions
    hewhositsoncushions Member Posts: 411 Member
    George

    George

    Meant to reply to this.

    I got 1% and 18% but since I relapsed and so did you I wonder what that means in context of the results? I think it is a bit lumpy in terms of its parameters...?

    H

  • Georges Calvez
    Georges Calvez Member Posts: 547 Member
    Statistics

    Hi H,

    I did not relapse, I had a PSA of 2,07 five weeks after the operation, we do not know what my nadir could have been as we did not take enough assays and I went straight on to ADT, yours popped its ugly little head up after some months I believe.
    The gamble in my case and yours is that the cancer is of a creeping variety and has gone into the prostate bed and environs instead of rolling out into the wild frontiers of our lymph glands, bones, etc for a bit of homesteading.
    If they tried that hopefully the injuns in our immune systems have hunted them down and scalped the little toerags!
    The statistics do not say anything about us individually as there are good and bad cases in there and it is hard to say as an individual how we compare with the herd, doctors have such affectionate terms for their patients!
    What is says and not very reliably is that out of a 100 patients like us three in my case or one will or in your case die will of prostate cancer before five years have elapsed, but as the sample covers all ages from striplings like us to those with close to their three score years and ten so quite a few will die of other health related causes as well plus there is the 7b bus, etc, accidental or otherwise,  to cover the other bases.
    The reason that it is not very reliable is because we are rare so the sample size is small, pure 2a's for example exist in the database by the thousand so the model is very good for them but it still says nothing about each case.
    It also illustates the caprice of the medical profession, you have had six months of ADT while I am logged on for 18 months or more but our PSA's at the start of the salvage treatment are not that different.
    Let us hope for good results for both of us despite the doctors and best of luck with your consultation.

    Best wishes,

    Georges

  • hewhositsoncushions
    hewhositsoncushions Member Posts: 411 Member
    George

    George

    Yea - you need balls of steel in this game. Mine are a bit squishy at the moment :(

  • Georges Calvez
    Georges Calvez Member Posts: 547 Member
    Normal

    Hi H,

    I was a keen naturist before the operation, last summer I did not go to the beach as I peed when I walked, now my genitals have quite frankly shrunk back to pre adolescent size and they are not going to recover so I look more than a little weird so that is the end of that! :-(

    Best wishes,

    Georges