Newly Diagnosed

Sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed at such an early age.

When you have met your doctor, be sure to get a copy of the pathology report. If you can paste or otherwise post the report here, then the many members who have all been through that initial shock, can provide you their advice and experience and opinions on the doctor's advice.

One of the most important aspects of prostate cancer decisions is to get several opinions. This is usually a slow growing cancer, and maybe half of the cases may never need treatment. And, there are several choices of treatments, if that is necessary. Your doctor's recommendations may be spot on, or maybe not. That is where this forum can be most helpful to you.

Good luck.

Lone wolf,
So sorry you had to seek HW out at 37 years old. I think you may be one of the youngest here with positive dx. You will get a wealth of information here, as you have predetermined.
It sure was a lousy entrance fee getting sepsis, though. We'll be watching for future posts.
Beth

I'll add my hand of welcome to our club that none of us chose. If you would, also let us know where you are located. While most of our membership is in the US, there are members who have checked in from all over the world. If we know where you are, we can point you to experts near you who can give you the best treatments.

You say that you're OK so far, and I hope so. At your age, this could be a "nothing" or it could be a long battle. So sorry to meet you here at your age.

As the others said, get a copy of your biopsy report and post the details here. Once we know that, we can help you understand where you're at on this journey. Since you're already been told that your biopsy was positive for cancer, we won't bore you with the odds of positive results. What I do want you to know is that some prostate cancers are very slow-growing and may not need active treatment for quite a while, if at all.

Try to stay calm. Once we learn your details, we can help you decide if you need to act quickly or not, and if you do, we can help you understand your options.

Too bad you have to be here, but you're at the best spot to learn how to deal with this disease.

That's one of those bad news/not so bad news deals. a G6 is the lowest grade. It could qualify you for Active surveillance (AS). G6 has been show to not metastasize. It is possible that some high grades PC cells are there, but one of your choices now is to not treat and just monitor for a number of years.

That's the conversation to have with the doctors - treat or not treat. If you do decide on treatment, any of the main line treatments will work just fine.

It's scary and a kick in the head, but you have every reason to hope for a positive outcome. Won't be fun a road to go down and there will be lasting effects.

Still, in time this will just be a bad memory.

Go learn all you can and keep asking questions - we're here most days,
Andrew

Welcome to the club no one wants to join, but glad you found this forum, which is helpful to all of us here.

Your pathology doesn't sound too bad, so don't overreact. You have plenty of time to get other opinions and carefully consider your treatment plan, if any is needed at this time.

Keep us posted. Good luck.

lonewolf, your pathology is the best of the bad. Seriously, this as benign as a cancer pathology can be.

But, you need to have a second opinion. I would also strongly recommend a genomics test such as OncotypeDX or Prolaris, and an mpMRI and a confirmatory biopsy within a year, if you choose the AS option.

Your report is the same as mine was years ago, and, so far, so good for me without treatment.

If the young age argument is raised for treatment, you may want to consider that you would also have many years of possible side effects to live with if you acted too soon. Here is a good article from a highly knowledgeable member of this forum.

https://prostatecancerinfolink.net/2016/07/07/can-a-man-be-too-young-for-active-surveillance/

If they could only invent a button. Wired into our psyches. That one could push. It could be programmed to make one forget a certain event. (Like a low grade/low volume G6 biopsy). It could be programmed to let that memory back in at a certain date into the future.

It is best to go with another's surety...very seldom does it work the other way...imo...

When I was diagnosed, I worried and connected every little thing to my cancer. (And for the record, I was a high risk G9.) Every ache and every little smudge on my bone scans. Only after having the perspective of 4-5 years do I realize how slow-growing and slow-spreading PCa is and that most everything can be explained by myriad more common causes. But given that experience, I'm totally with you on the concern about urgency and testicular pain. But I really, really don't think that's cancer. (Warning...I'm not a doctor. I'm just giving you my opinion.)

And since I'm giving you my opinion, to recommend surgery and risk causing continence issues and ED in a young 37-year old because you have one G6 core with less than 5% of cancer is a travesty.

That said, I totally agree that you need to due your due diligence and check out the dark mass and you certainly want to get to the cause of testicular pain and urgency. But you can only deal with what you know now: a tiny bit of low-risk cancer, a PSA that doesn't indicate any spread from the prostate and the fact that you are very young for PCa. My (again, non medical) advice is to take things slow, systematically check things out and to please, not think of the worst case for yourself. (I know, easier said than done.) I'll be interested to hear what others say. Good luck to you...I know this isn't easy!

I would ask that doc point blank - "Why are you in such a rush to remove my prostate?" Maybe there is something that he hasn't told you or you haven't shared with us, but absent that missing information, from what you've posted to date, I would whole heartedly agree with ASAdvocate. If all you have is one core of G6 with <5% involvement, I cannot imagine anyone rushing you into surgery. G6 is the least aggressive and slowest growing prostate cancer, and it has the lowest likelihood of becoming anything worse. With your small tumor load, it would probably take years to become of concern, if it ever does. I personally think you would be a prime candidate for Active Surveillance, and I'm surprised your uro didn't bring it up.

Again, just my opinion, but if he persists with blindly pushing you toward surgery, at least get a second opinion from another independent uro (not his associate). You owe it to yourself.

Lone, sorry for the diagnosis. You have already received some excellent advice so I will not repeat it. I will emphasize the importance of a second opinion on your biopsy slides and share the reason why, particularly in a case like yours. Dr. Epstein at JHU has found that a small but significant number of biopsies are read as cancer when, in fact, there is no cancer at all!

We had had men on this forum who had a "mild" diagnosis like yours, get surgery, and then find out there was no cancer present in the final pathology. Talk about a bummer! Anyway, I'm not saying you don't have cancer but please be sure of your pathology.

Jim