HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

9 1/2 year PSA results!

Support Forums
>
Prostate Cancer
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 3/25/2021 9:29 PM (GMT 0)
I had my annual physical recently and my primary care doctor (whom I've been with for many, many years) did the usual blood work, including a PSA. Results? 0.01. I do feel good. It's been 9 1/2 years since I finished treatment (proton beam at Indiana University) and I sure can't argue with results. A completely satisified customer!!
Posted 3/25/2021 9:39 PM (GMT 0)
Outstanding outcome. Congratulations!
Posted 3/25/2021 9:49 PM (GMT 0)
Very nice. Congrats
Posted 3/25/2021 11:42 PM (GMT 0)

Almost to a decade !

Start the countdown, start planning the celebration!

Here's MORE MILESTONES!

CYCLONE ~ # Iowa State University
Posted 3/26/2021 12:50 AM (GMT 0)
Outstanding..
Posted 3/26/2021 7:22 AM (GMT 0)
Great results Skeeter. Complete cancer control and negligible treatment side effects for nearly 10 years thanks to radiotherapy. Welcome to the club. Many men on the board are in the same situation, Glad the brilliant people at my alma mater took very great and effective care of you.

I was a student at IU in Bloomington when the Cyclotron was being built back in a very wooded area away from the main campus. Very little info was available and a lot of rumors circulated. The site was completely off limits. A fraternity brother grad student was involved and gave up no info even after many brews. Mum was the word. Then after some time the university started touting the cutting edge world class research they were doing at the center. We learned that some of the research was medical using the proton based ionizing radiation to treat cancers.

Eventually in 2004 IU opened the first proton radiotherapy center in the Midwest and only third in the country, and started treating patients, you among them. However, the expensive business model proved unwieldy and the center closed in 2014. It did treat more than a thousand patients, many of them for PCa. An article, in 2014, in Modern Healthcare related that many insurers including giants Aetna and Cigna had decided to stop reimbursing for PCa treatment due to the high cost compared to photons based treatments like IMRT and IGRT. Studies were showing no advantages to the proton therapy either in cancer control or reported treatment side effects. At the time Proton therapy was nearly three times the cost of comparable Photon treatment. Not long after, Medicare reduced the reimbursement protocol to an amount comparable to Photon therapy. The volume of PCa work dropped at IU and other centers appropriately and PCa treatment is no longer a major part of operations at most Proton Centers today. The IU center was the first Proton center to close.

Skeeter, here is to many more years of low PSA and great quality of life. It is always good to see your regular updates.
Posted 3/26/2021 11:06 AM (GMT 0)
JNF, as an IU alum, I hope you can appreciate when I say (as a devout UK fan) that I have never been treated better in my life than during the time I spent in Bloomington being treated at the proton therapy center. Everyone from the doctors to the techs to even the receptionists were incredibly nice and caring. One thing that contributed to the costs at IU was that their protocol required that a radiation oncologist actually be present to approve alignment, etc., before any patient could be radiated. That was every day!

The other problem in particular was the the Cyclotron they used was old, and required extensive daily maintenance to keep it up and running. Every night after all patients had been treated, a team of technicians would come in and work on the Cyclotron to make sure everything was working properly. I took a weekend tour of the Cyclotron and was surprised not only at the size of the thing, but how analog it was. It was built for the space program, and was used for a lot of NASA research. Interestingly, when the USA and Russia began cooperating on space missions, they also did a lot of research work for Russia. When the space program started slowing down is when they started looking for other uses for the Cyclotron, thus the birth of the proton therapy center for medical purposes. As I understand it, newer Cyclotrons are smaller, digital and much less expensive to build and operate.

Finally the last problem for the IU proton therapy center is that it was in Bloomington rather than Indianapolis. Getting referrals from Indy docs was difficult according to what the Center director told me one time. Regardless I had a great time during my treatment. It was painless, and I enjoyed the Bloomington area. What a nice town, even if it is in the middle of "nowhere." (Sorry!).

Today, with all the additional choices available, who knows what I might choose. The availability of nearby SBRT is certainly appealing, even if I think it is still far more experimental than proton. Time will tell, I am sure.
Posted 3/26/2021 12:47 PM (GMT 0)
CONGRATULATIONS Skeeter!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted 3/26/2021 12:49 PM (GMT 0)
Great information. And just so you know at IU we treat Wildcats better than Boilermakers!

Yes, the medical use was not what the cyclotron was designed for, but they did get some good out of it. And when it needed significant upgrades the cost justification wasn’t there. If it had been more successful, it might have prompted a Proton Center at IU Medical Center in Indianpolis. However, as IU was coming off line, Proton reimburse for PCa dried up. PCa treatment was to be the cash cow for Proton that would essentially fund the centers fixed costs due to the expected volume. The combination of reduced and/or eliminated reimbursement and the surge of AS for the G6 and low risk G7 removed an estimated 50% of the expected revenue for Proton centers.

I have seen reported that the next generation will be mini-centers with only one gantry and costing only $50-100 million. The recently opened center at Emory here in Atlanta ended up costing over $400 million. With very little PCa work, the center is not busy and operating at a fraction of its capacity.

It remains that Proton is absolutely the best currently for some cancers, but not for all. When high volume PCa use exposed the significant cost differences without results differences....that spelled an end for that utilization.
Posted 3/26/2021 1:07 PM (GMT 0)
Congratulations! It is great to read such inspiring news. I’m two years undetectable and hoping for many more, like you.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply