PSA is not an airline! what if on the third try she spikes

After Surgery,After Radiation - what and why would one take it further. What might one on the third try expect as a procedure?

It might become the drug protocol therapies realm, which can and do work for many patients for possibly many, many years it varies tremendously, in small cell PCa (variant) prognosis it horrible and hormone therapies are short or non-existent for useage. Drug therapies not considered cures but it could even be possible for an anectdotol cure to happen, probably very rare of course. One abstract I have seen is from 1955 which claimed anectdotal cured patients(over longer time period), hard to prove in hindsight it was prior to the psa era to measure for possible distant mets or micro mets, etc. But, they did not die of PCa and had total normalcy and without known mets, which sure looks decent.

Here is one from Paact Newletter only a couple months ago: 2 identical twins both had similar prostate cancer, both had different treatments. One died and the other is living on, it will be interesting to know the parameters and walks of both of them for comparison sake, I don't have that or I would have posted the known information. You can get the Newsletter by contacting them www.paactusa.org

There are abstracts that either suggest or show improvement for folks whom do certain drug protocols compared to others that do nothing but wait. There are drugs that seem to slow progression times, cause temporary remissions (months and sometimes years). The onco-docs for PCa have seen all kinds of bizzare patient levels of PCa and variant strains of this disease and have had reasonable success in prolonging survival it appears, some PCa onco-docs have mentioned some patients did way better than they would have assessed them to do.

How long is longer survival???? No data maybe, I am not sure on that might be abstract or patient data in some places to be found. Ask the person whom is with psa of 3000+ or near it and has mets, if he might want to try various drug protocols, there is a guy on www.yananow.net whom is over 10 yrs. with psa level started at 3000+ and high enough gleasons etc....I doubt he would be living without these drug protocols. He may fail at anytime, but already has out done most patients diagnosed with the same parameters.

So, whom wants to judge the world of PCa in general????

That's the biggie, isn't it?...having gone thru surgery, PSA rise, radiation....I wonder that every time I get my PSA checked.....
THe way I understand it, the next stop, IF there's a rise in PSA, is hormone treatment - I think I would opt for intermittent HT if my PSA rises again. Not considered curative, but as zufus pointed out, there CAN be anecdotal cures from HT at that point --- my oncologist has seen it--- although its rare.

THe idea would be to keep the cancer in check as long as possible on HT (in many cases, many, many years)...then if that runs its course, there are other protocols out there...more important, if we can delay progression long enough, there may be treatments...even cures...we don't have now.

Of course, like you, I surely hope and pray I'm cured now....and don't have to find out the other protocols first hand!

zufus said...
It might become the drug protocol therapies realm, which can and do work for many patients for possibly many, many years it varies tremendously, in small cell PCa (variant) prognosis it horrible and hormone therapies are short or non-existent for useage. Drug therapies not considered cures but it could even be possible for an anectdotol cure to happen, probably very rare of course.

     Zufus, when you write "small cell PCa" what do you mean by small cell?  Is this something that can be seen in the biopsy?

Bob, I understand your point on this post too well. The other cancer I have dealt with 3 times in my life is so ultra rare, that it doesn't even show up in most cancer groups or sites. In fact, the American Cancer Society doesn't even list it. An ultra rare disease is usually defined as having less then 10,000 cases world wide. I have had porocarcinoma the three times. The first time in my scalp, they removed it. In less then a year, it came back with a vengenge, huge, ugly, bleeding all the time. This time, involved major plastic surgery to the scalp, long ugly story there (still have an ugly red triangular sunken scar on the top of my head). Two years later, while about to shave my neck, was scratching it, felt a weird rectangular lump right below the skin. Two surgeries to remove it. Came back with the same porocarcinoma in my lymph nodes. Two more operations to remove lumps in my thigh and groin, to be safe. Then I began the 35 days of radiation treatments, covered me from about my nipples to my nostrils. Was rough as hell, side effects were terrible, to this day, have constant thirst, can't really spit anymore, still suffer chronic fatigue, and that ended 9 years ago!

At that time, I was one of only 38 known cases in American medical history with such a cancer, and in the whole world, less than 300 known cases. My dr. had one other patient, a female, little older than me, she has since died of it. With 2 patients, my oncologist was considered the "expert".

Yes, there are weird little cancer variants that the pros just don't know a thing about.

David in SC