Posted 4/23/2012 1:56 AM (GMT 0)
Forgive a novice board member for throwing in 2 cents. I have had varicocele for a long time. One thing tipping me to LARP vs. radiation was that I had read about the link between vein drainage and Pca and, to my non-medical mind, getting rid of my prostate altogether gave me better chances than hit or miss radiation. I say hit or miss because no one doctor I talked to appeared able to "pull everything together" and give me a clear idea, pre-treatment, of exactly what my situation was and what was really the best treatment plan. And I talked to a family doc, an internist, two urologists, a radiologist, read Walsh's book, other web stuff, and read all these board postings, trying to figure out what to do. The MRI didn't give that much info that could be interpreted, the bone scan seemed pretty definitive negative but I also had some arthritis that was confusing the readings, and, finally, my biopsy turned out to be very unlike my final pathology (post-LARP). Apparently, this is just no good way for a prostate cancer patient to know the best treatment route. Sitting on what I was told was 4+3=7 (but post surgery turned out to be 3+4=7), I didn't want to keep putting off a decision. Good thing, too, since I had 30% prostate involvement + pos margins and perineural invasion on final pathology, whereas the biopsy only showed small core involvement of 3% of total core lengths on only 4 or 12 cores. If I do avoid BCR, it will just be barely so.
I did mention this drainage "theory", just in passing, to my surgeon on first post-surgery follow up. He didn't comment much either way.