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treatment and surgery in Colorado

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Posted 3/12/2015 1:01 PM (GMT 0)
Newly diagnosed. psa 5.7, gleason 8 (4+4). see urologist today in CoSprings, have 2nd opinion in Denver at TUCC next week. Scared! Would like to hear from Colorado treated members. Im 64 biopsy 3 wks ago. Thanks
Posted 3/12/2015 1:20 PM (GMT 0)
Not from CO but I want to say welcome to the forum. There is a bunch of experience and knowledge here. This is new to you and it's natural to be a bit scared but you WILL get through this.
Posted 3/12/2015 2:08 PM (GMT 0)
Hey RxMan,

I was treated by Kaiser in Denver about six years ago and liked their care. After going on Medicare, I switched to TUCC for follow up care and they seem pretty good for that.

Today, if I were to pick an organization in Colorado for my initial treatment I would start with the University of Colorado (Anschutz in Aurora). I like their team approach and in my opinion they have the best staff and equipment in Colorado. To me, because of their broad backgrounds the team tends to recommend the most appropriate treatment (surgery vs brach vs external beam, etc.) based on your specific case.

That's my opinion. I am pretty sure others will give you more insights.

Best wishes and good luck as you move forward.
Posted 3/12/2015 2:46 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you RCS and Faustmann for your replies!
I looked at UColorado but I'm worried about getting a resident for surgery. From what I have read hear you want someone with 500 procedures under their belt. Can anyone address this?
Thank you!
Posted 3/12/2015 4:17 PM (GMT 0)
The best treatment in the state is at the University of Colorado. Dr Crawford is one of the top 5-10 urologic oncologists in the US. They also do much cutting edge research. In fact they are firm believers that presently there is massive over treatment of Pca. I was treated with much less invasive treatment and still 6 years later remain the most successfully treated man on this site. I first was diagnosed at TUCC and my first urologist flat out lied to me that untreated with my low risk PCa I'd be dead in 7 years. That's untrue now and was then. But there are other urologists there too. My doctor is the head of research at CU. Email me if you want more advice and to know the urologist not to go to at TUCC.

watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SygJpKFZ_OI
Posted 3/13/2015 1:14 AM (GMT 0)
My husband was treated by Dr. Crawford at University of Colorado. My husband is also high risk G9 but we did not know that until after surgery. Dr. Crawford and staff are very good but at times are very busy and it is hard to get an appointment. But other than that my husbands surgery came out good. He is no longer having trouble with urinary incontinence and ED is slowly getting better and he is only 6 months out. Dr. Crawford is watching him very closely and if necessary he will need some radiation but Dr. wants to let him heal as much as possible. I think what I liked most is that you case is reviewed by a board of doctors who then decide what is your best plan of action. The board consists of medical oncologists, radiology oncologists, and urinary oncologist/surgeons. I hope all goes well for you.
Posted 3/13/2015 2:12 AM (GMT 0)
RxMan, you're getting some good input here. My thought is that when it comes to PC, "go big or go home" is a great slogan. I think most of us have found that the big academic centers are where you want to be. It's perfectly OK to ask your surgeon if he's going to be the one on the davinci controls. Most of them make sure that if they put their name on your chart, that they are the ones doing the deed.

There are surgeons out there that have 2000, 3000 procedures under their belts. My surgeon also told me that before he learned the Davinci, he had over 1000 open RPs as well. Which made me even more confident, knowing that if there was a problem, he could switch gears and go for the open method without missing a beat.
Posted 3/13/2015 10:22 AM (GMT 0)
RxMan,

In answer to your question, at one point I saw a curve where some measure of surgical success was plotted against the number of PCa DaVinci surgeries performed. It seems to me that the curve flattened out somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 to 500 procedures. So if one of your criteria for selecting a surgeon is the number of surgeries, 500 would seem like a good number to use.

You may also want to ask the surgeon, how he was trained on the DaVinci. I feel a doctor who completed a fellowship on the use of the DaVinci would have received superior training to a surgeon who was retrained in a short course supplied by the manufacture.

Other issues that I feel are important when selecting a DaVinci surgeon include; contingency plan if DaVinci must be aborted, trust, access for follow up care, and length of time the surgeon has worked with his DaVinci support team (for a good outcome the surgeon is dependent on other doctors and nurses).
Posted 3/13/2015 11:51 AM (GMT 0)
Our experience at University of Colorado wasn't so good. My husband saw a different doctor there, not Dr. Crawford mentioned by others. It's great that they have a team approach, but it seemed broken in our case. We finally called a week after the board was to have discussed my husband's case (they hadn't gotten back to us) and the doctor said the team couldn't agree on best treatment for him. Not much help - only added to our confusion.

We ended up going with Dr. Lee - office in Ft. Collins, does surgery out of Medical Center of the Rockies. We asked both doctor at UC and Lee how many robotic surgeries they had done and Dr. Lee had done a couple hundred more. Dr. Lee is not only an excellent surgeon but has the best bedside manner of any doctor I've encountered.

When we were at UC, I did ask about the resident doing the surgery and doctor said that a resident would be assisting him, but that he would be doing the actual surgery.
Posted 3/13/2015 11:56 AM (GMT 0)
Forgot to mention, Medical Center of the Rockies is part of the UC system and I think Dr. Lee is associated with them, too.
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