Prostate cancer then cancer of Ureter finally bladder cancer.

Anyone else "blessed" with these cancers: Prostate, Ureter and finally bladder in that order. Makes me wonder if that nasty crap traveled first up stream from the prostate to the Ureter then finally winding down into my bladder. Getting a cancer diagnosis does NOT affect me as much any more - at least as much as the very first one. Oh, had a soft tissue sarcoma just 35 years ago and went cancer free until year 2000. Going to the local VA hospital next week for my PSA test and another Cystoscopy to make certain the bladder still is doing well. Only trouble with getting catheterized so often, it sure screwed my point of aim when standing to take a leak.

I know it is a little early, but I was just wondering if the brachytherapy might have caused the cancer.

Radiation induced secondary cancers are very rare in the first 15 years, normally unthinkable in the first five years. Generally, the radiation induced cancers will more often come from less focused external beam radiation treatments that are no longer being used. The more modern focused treatments like IMRT/IGRT/SBRT and brachytherapy should result in less frequency of radiation induced secondary cancers as less of the healthy tissue is negatively affected. Even where significant radiation has affected people like after the nuclear blasts in Japan and the Chernobyl power plant disaster, it took many years for radiation induced cancers to appear.

I understand there may some correlation between prostate cancer and bladder cancer, even though they are distinctly different cancers, but I haven't found anyone citing any cause and effect between the two. I have also heard that there can be come correlation between melanoma and PCa that having one may increase the risk or incidence of having the other.

I personally know of two men in the last five years that have experienced both cancers. My brother in law was treated with IMRT for low grade PCA and then two years later he was diagnosed with a bladder cancer. He is clear on the PSA front and has been pursuing an immunology approach that is holding the bladder cancer at bay effectively. In the other instance a client had PCa and underwent surgery, but no radiation. A few years later he had significant bladder cancer and had to remove the bladder. Basically he is cancer free, the good thing.

For you, like many of us, it is the luck of the draw. Your BT had nothing to do with the bladder cancer as you most likely already had it but was not yet detected. Remember, most cancers take 15 or more years of development before they reach the stage they can be detected. It has been reported that once
men reach maturity the incidence of PCa roughly equals their age. So at age 50 it is probable that half of the men actually have prostatic cancer cells. But, for most all they are not yet detectable or causing problems. And for most they never will, thankfully. I was diagnosed at age 60, but most assuredly already had PCa at age 45 or 50.