As usual I agree with Tall Allen's advice of having a medical team consisting of a urologist/surgeon or two plus a radiaition oncologist and a medical oncologist the latter being the least biased with respect to choice of surgery vs radiation.
A hammer sees all problems as a nail waiting to be hammered so the surgeons tend to recommend surgery and the radiation oncologist tends to recommend radiation but the medical oncologist has no vested interest on which remedy.
As amny as possible of these medical team memebers should be from national PCa centers and not all fromthe same practice to avoid any potential for self referrals for example the firm having just invested in some radiation equipment that the doctors may be getting bonuses for if they find someone who "needs radiation".
As a G9 14 years your elder, I have had very low PSA as well, maxed out at 3.68 but biopsy last year after my 3 consecutive PA doubling time results were 1.6, 2.62 adn 3.68.
Finally you should have a bunch of scans, a bone density scan to establish a baseline for osteoporosis if you go onto hormonal therapy that is tough on bones, a whole bopdy scan scnintigram and a CT scan of pelvis, and abdomen. If you find any distant mets or lymph nodes outside the prostate, do MRIs to confirm the scan analysis.
Surgeons and even some medical oncologists tend to view these actual tests as a Rorschach test since interpretting them can be very subjective. Do not rely just on th paper report that in my experience has always been too much CYA Legalize keep me out of court and not specific enough. So have the radiation oncologist wallk you through the actual test on his/her computer pointing out what areas are suspicious.
I have been doing very well just on 4-month Lupron shots andmonthly Xgeva shots to prevent so called adverse skeletal events caused by Lupron bone damage. However reecently I sought out the advice of a private firm in Marina Del Ray California to make sure I should not be treating my aggressive PCA G9 with Oligometastasis originally (met have since disappeared on std bone scan but suspect the micro mets < 2mm in size will show up on more advance F-18 scan and also any undiagnosed lymph node involvement may show up on advanced C-11 tests I am having performed next week at Arizona Molecular Imaging by Dr Fabio Almeida.
See this other thread for the whole litany
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=3102800You will find the G9 thread that Redwing57 started very educational
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=2863652&p=7LupronJim
LupronJim