My dad just diagnosed with prostate cancer. PSA 1080!

1080@55

Welcome to our little corner of the world, a place no one wants to be - but if you or a loved one has prostate cancer a place where you need to be.

It is always worth while to seek out a second opinion.

Hormone therapy of 1 injection every six months - is that it? Do you know what the injection would be? I suspect Lupron (or equivalent)

Depends on what is found out as far as surgery.

Bone scans are definitly needed before you have a better picture.

Even if your Dad can't be cured - he can still live a long life

Bud

Hi and welcome.

You and your dad are going to be "drinking from a firehose" of new terms; learning all sorts of things you never thought you wanted to know about. Brace youself.

Here's some of the new terms to add to your vocabulary. "Localized cancer" and "systemic cancer."

"Localized" cancer is basically in one spot, and so a surgeon can go in to that one known location and delicately, surgically remove the prostate (in this case).

Cancer that has spread outside of the prostate to the lymphatic system, or to the skeleton, is known as "systemic" cancer. A targeted surgical operation cannot be used curatively in systemic cases, although sometimes surgery is used to "debulk" large prostate tumors in systemic cases.

Please do feel free to come back here with more questions as you progress down the new journey...

The doc will likely put him on Lupron or Zoladex or similar LHRH drug which usually will drop the psa level plenty, ask him about wisely using casodex prior to the injections (like 10-14 days prior) it is an additional safety thing to prevent T-flare that happens upon giving LHRH drugs. Might even be wise to do both drugs in combo, many have done so with good results, some even added proscar or avodart and make it ADT3 (3-drugs). Read about side effects and atleast know what they are.

Recommended website of info, patient histories, forum board: www.yananow.net  
Best to you and plenty to learn on this, also read about drug therapies others have used at www.hrpca.org    (proven treatments tab)

You can still do major treatments but much less likely to be considered curative but could debulk tumor burden of PCa, there are nomograms you can  plug in your stats to and see your odds for attempting surgery and such things.

Post Edited (zufus) : 6/18/2012 3:54:03 PM (GMT-6)

1080@55. My name is Todd and I was 3216@42. Yep its scary. No doubt about it. Some people hear the word cancer and start digging a hole in the ground. Others start living life as they never have before. I recommend the latter. This stuff cann be beat into submission. I was given a year and it has been 6. I am healthier and happier now than I ever was before. E mail me for any questions you have. Best regards. Todd

Hello all,

Thanks you all so much for your replies!

We have a meeting with the Urologist next Monday where he was planning to administer the first LHRH injection. The drug is called 'Lucrin', I think it is similar to Lupron. I believe Zoladex is no longer available in NZ. There was no mention of Casodex or anything similar. I will ask on Monday before he administers injection. I need to find out more about Casodex, and see if its even available in New Zealand. Thanks again for all your kind words and advice.

I'm off to do some more research. Will let you know how we get on after Monday!

Cheers

I am very sorry to hear about your dad. It looks as if you & I will be learning a lot together. April 9th - PCP said "concerned with Prostate Cancer" - May 9th - positive diagnosis after CT/Bone Scans & Prostate biopsy done. told Gleason is 9 (4+5) and I am still not even sure the significance of the order of the numbers. Started Casodex same day and hubby has had one Eligard injection to date - they will be done every 6 months. Had a dental appt last week to determine if he is a candidate for Zometa and has to have 2 teeth pulled tomorrow & heal from those before the Zometa will be started. Tomorrow he also has an appt with the Radiation Oncologist to determine what type / frequency etc the radiation therapy will be.

although "multiple sites" have been identified of some bone involvement - the scans who two major areas of concern where tumors are clearly present. Our lives started spinning out of control in the beginning - and then we decided that we will not allow this disease to define us or our lives. We will live life to the fullest while we have it together to live. Things are going to be different no doubt - but we have always believed that attitude determines altitude and we have a strong faith and belief that our God can get us through anything.

Gypsy

The natural healer might be on drugs (lol) the biopsies and known lymph nodes envolved are huge csi evidence and the remaining psa values. You have been diagnosed with high risk level and significant case of PCa, the ADT3 idea is not a bad concept but your current course is also typical treatment therapy and yes some people can respond very well just on mono therapies, like casodex only and it is atleast a decent sign to see that large drop within one month.

I hate to be the one to mention the realities of PCa, but nothing is guaranteed and this disease is not easily defined or analyzed well enough to make even real good prognosis's and too many parameters, variables, types or variants of PCa and changes over time happening to biology of it all. So, patients results vary greatly and the docs have plenty of controversies over protocols and methods to chose. If you have known lymphnode envlovement (which could easily go undetectable in many patients), what does that say about possible micro mets that could linger elsewhere or anywhere in the body? The current scanning methods we have are only good to certain levels and far from the perfection we actually wish to have or need. You could get surgery and also remove or zap the lymphnodes known about, and take your chances towards curative but the odds are probably not super favorable for such to happen. You could plug in your stats into nomograms to get an idea of those types of odds, still it is imperfect as a tool to use.

You will probably be on lupron (lucrin) and maybe casodex as a combo (a good idea for both), until some juncture whereby it no longer holds psa levels down low (aka becomes hormone refractive) then other options like Zytiga and many others are what may follow. There are alot of other drug choices that can be used, some are called second line therapies....see this website for info on some of that: www.hrpca.org    (prove therapies tab). Ask about ways to counter the side effects of your hormone therapy, you may need to do so. Keep searching and learning anything you can and know about your choices and options and how to live and cope along the way. Hope is eternal for us all.

That's some really great news. If I've done my math correctly that's a 78.7% decrease, and that is amazing.
Hope your dad continues down that path.

Rodney...