Book: The Key to Prostate Cancer.. Mark Scholz

Hi All,
Thanks again for all of your help.
l am reading this book and have some questions.
I thought you guys may have also read the book.

In the book, he creates this ... color of blue categories.
So depending on your various symptoms, Gleason score, PSA, spread/not spread... etc. He assigns colors of blue.
Question: Is this something of his own design or an industry wide thing?

Then, in an early part, he states that for the people that are in the .. Sky Blue, Teal zone...
IMRT plus Permanent seeds also plus maybe TIP provide statistically the highest of all cure rates.
(TIP is Testosterone Inhibiting Pharmaceuticals)

So I keep reading...
I get to the surgery chapter.
He also states in there that surgery has the best curative rates.

Confused.

Oh Gd @groundhogy you are like a little girl selling flowers in no-mans-land: get your head down, quick! Haha - just kidding of course but this could be DESIGNED to start a war.

For me, the data are clear. If you are after a CURE*, radiation (and the forms are not fundamentally as different as the markets make out, a bit like surgery in that regard) has a higher CURE rate than surgery. Some people cannot realistically have radiation and for them the key is THE VARIABILITY OF SURGERY QUALITY IS PROBABLY HIGHER: hence the horror stories.

After surgery, you need to be prepared for the possibility of radiation. Once you have had both, you should be ahead of the game (being either treatment individually) oncologically but obviously you are likely to have more side effects. And (and this is me firing Big Bertha: I should expect incoming), I personally would rather be salvaged after surgery than after radiation.

Having surgery then adjuvant RT is very effective but I suspect you will not find anyone ready to do it other than in high-risk cases. For others, salvage RT seems to be as effective. But by all means, having surgery PLANNING to be salvaged is a low risk approach oncologically and emotionally. That was basically my plan, but I got tripped up by persistent PSA, which accelerated the timing uncomfortably and gives me an unpleasantly high chance of PCSM.

Proper imaging will suggest which course of action is likely to be better in terms of oncological v functional outcomes. I essentially chose to go the "surgery then radiation" route based on my imaging and the fact that my LUTS were deteriorating alarmingly. I can flesh out if you like. It might have been the wrong course (radiation can improve LUTS long term) but that is impossible to know, and standing in agony in a shower trying to find an angle where you can squeeze out a few drops of pee concentrates the mind...

* Apart from those who have a tiny 3+3 or something, I personally suggest approaching PCa from a point of view of MANAGING, not CURING. Much less emotionally wearing. From what I remember of yours, if MANAGED it is not going to kill you even if you do not CURE it and trying to CURE it may involve unnecessary costs.

groundhogy,

Congrats on the steps you are taking to educate yourself. I also read that book, or to be honest, I read the sections that applied to me.

All of these educational steps you are taking will help you when you are speaking to various doctors.

As you are discovering yes there are several ways to solve your prostate cancer problem which is something to be thankful for if you think about it.

There are. no ironclad guarantees just probabilities of various outcomes and I can tell you that many many men with PCa would love to be in your position. You have lots of options all resulting in a high cure rate, but differing potential side effects.

Haha: @Tudpock18 : we are both (perhaps) showing observer bias. But I agree, @groundhogy looks to have a high probability of cure. Whether "most" of us have been cured as opposed to managed depends on a definition of "most", I suppose...

While it is true that all men need to monitor their PSA after treatment for PCa, which is why we don't speak of a "cure", the initial treatment for PCa, barring distant mets, is nonetheless done with what is termed "curative intent."

Please create a signature file. It is much harder for folks replying to be specific if we don't see a summary of your salient history and diagnostic workup (PSA trend, history, imaging and biopsy reports, etc.) and have to locate and search your other threads to find the information.

Thanks,

Djin

Dgin Tonic...your advice in the second paragraph is by leagues the best advice given in this thread...not that the other advice is sage...sigh...yet their effect...well...is much like the proverbial we'll see

Pratoman said...
UNLESS I AM MISSING SOMETHING, i need to correct some of the posts here....

In Groundhogy's initial post here...
{url}https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=4276134

he started his post with the following...
'Biopsy G(4+3) Last week.
Doc took his good old time and this G7 has been in me over a year now'

So he is not (3+4) low intermdiate risk, he is (4+3) high intermediate risk. Again, if i am missing something, please correct me.

Can we have a round of applause for signatures, please? Not only do they help everyone else know your accurate story, they help the poster remember and keep his own story straight!

Fear not this thread is about over...soon to be replaced with another as an unconscious distraction...hey... it happens... no shame...everyone is different and can be exasperating. I mean EVERYONE

Curative INTENT yes. Curative HOPE certainly. Curative EXPECTATION: best approached eyes wide open.

Healingwell describes itself as a support site for chronic conditions and it is not an accident that PCa has its own forum. “HealingWell is dedicated to healing well with chronic illness.”

If we are a one-and-you’re-cured disease, what are we doing here?

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.