Surgery

JCat69,    

I am sorry for your diagnosis.

Surgery is not the only decision for treatment that you might wish to consider. There are also other treatment options to include various form of radiation , IMRT, SBRT, proton, etc. that may be appropriate. It might even be that you can consider "Active Surveillance with Delayed Treatment if necessary" .

In order to provide you with input, so that you can make a best decision, more information is needed from you about your biopsy results and  and what led to you getting a biopsy..

First , why did you receive a biopsy?

Any urological signs?

What is your PSA history?

 What did the digital rectal exam show(finger wave)?

Did you have any other diagnostic tests?, PCA3, MRI with a T3 Magnet, etc, etc. What were the results of these?

.................

Biopsy....Do you have a copy of the pathological report? How many cores were taken? How many were positive? Of each core that was positive, what was the Gleason, and involvement, that is what percent of each core was positive? 

Any other notes on the pathology report.

......

I do not understand why you would need to wait six months for a second opinion by a specialist. By the way there are radiation oncologists with various specialties, medical oncologists. Additionally there is a difference between urologists...some are better qualified than others....you would want to evaluate....we can help. 

I completely agree with the opinions above forwarded. You were set into a trap or, for whatever reason it may be you may not be judging things properly.

Surgery for prostate cancer is not a walk in the park. It has many pitfalls that you should be aware of before deciding. Apart of that surgery could as well not be the proper treatment for your case. Maybe your insurance only covers services at busy facilities or pays consultation fees every six months, or you are engaged with a NHS system.

I wonder what you are looking for in this forum and what is causing such “requirement” for a premature surgery without knowing the opinion of other doctors in advance. I think that you still have time to postpone the surgery so that you may secure more details to be totally satisfied with the choice. Peace of mind is worth the simple cost of a second opinion (80 €).

Best wishes for your judgement.

VG

Swingshiftworker said:

Ditto!

Ditto to what everyone else said.

I generally consider surgery to be the absolute WORST choice one can make for the treatment of PCa.  There are a lot of reasons for this, which one can easily discover with some brief reaseach.  I suppose there are certain cases there surgery would be considered the best option but, frankly, I am at a loss to name them. 

However, if surgery is the best option in your case (Jcat69), it would really be in your best interest to make a reasoned decision based on consideration of ALL of the other options available to you, which you obviously have not done yet.

I would hesitate to make value judgements on the various options available until such time as all of the pertinant information has been offered up. All Pca treatments - or non treatment - have side effects and related hazards to consider....on a case by case basis.

You need to move on this and do the research.  Change them if you need to !