Advanced Prostate Cancer Discussion?

Hello All. This is my second post. My 67 year old father was recently diagnosed with advanced PC. Gleason score of 8, positive bone scan. We've spent much of the past couple weeks searching the internet for information to help us make the best treatment decisions. We have opted for an orchiectomy.

While I have found this discussion board extremely useful, most of the cases here, as well as at healthboards.com, relate to Stage 1 through 3 PC cases. As we know, once the PC has spread significantly beyond the prostate, it is a very different story in terms of treatment options and prognosis. Thus I find many of the posts here to not be directly applicable to my father's case.

I'm wondering if there is a discussion board devoted to advanced prostate cancer discussion. I think this would be a very useful resource for advanced PC patients and their loved ones. It would allow us to access the info we seek more efficiently, and to commiserate with others in similar situations. Does such a discussion board currently exist?

Thank you very much,

Sam

Sam, their are others here who are in the same boat as your dad. TC-LasVegas is one who didn't get the expected results following surgery. I believe they put him at a stage 3, maybe 4, and he had been doing alot of research regarding options. I haven't seen him around here lately, but will send him an email to see if he has anything that may be of help. My father was diagnosised at the age of 49 with stage 4 PCa. Although, he didn't survive, (it was 15 years ago), he did have great success with his treatments, until the end. He started with hormones, and later added radiation. At that time, we were told that Chemo didn't do anything for PCa, but it did for him. It took his PSA from over 100 to 2.6. Many, many advances have since been made. MD Anderson in Houston is a great place to go. Good luck to you. Courtney

Hi Sam-
I too am in the same boat as you...my precious 62 year old dad has PC. His is Hormone Refractory. He has had PC for 2 years and has so far had...lymph nodes removed(this was supposed to be prostate removal, but cancer had spread so Dr took the LN's), and an orchiotomy in Dec 06. The orchiotomy did not work on my dad. The cancer came back and spread with three tumors in the lymph nodes between the kidneys. We are in our 7th month of a Clinical Study involving Taxotere Chemo with High Doses of Vit D...DN101. My dad is responding wonderful...with some side effects..but nothing too horrible. We are supposed to finish the study the second week of June but may go just a little longer. 7 weeks ago, my dad's PSA was down to .05 and the cancer has decreased 70-85%. We hope to have him in remission this summer. The only problem-I am told it will not stay in remission..that the reoccurrence rate is very high on his type of aggressive cancer.
I do a lot of research. I have found www.cancercompass.com to be helpful. There are a couple of online oncologists that hang out there to help answer questions. One told me that we should treat my dad's cancer aggressively since he is young, otherwise healthy, and strong enough to fight this. He suggested following the chemo up with Radiation. We have an appointment this Friday with the radiologist oncologist. I am hoping we can do that and keep him in remission a lot longer.
It has not been easy...but I have a lot of faith and hope. I go to every single appointment with my dad..we are fighting this together. I help him keep track of medicines, appointments..and just encourage him and try to help with guidance on the medical end. I tell my dad to hang in there..they are working on new treatments as we speak...one day..maybe we can get a cure for our precious dads.
The only other thing I highly recommend is diet-low fat, no red meat, low milk fats, just chicken, fish, fruit and veggies mostly...and drink pomegranite juice daily. I pray that you and your dad find some medical guidance.,.to me, that has been the hardest part..knowing what is the right thing to do. I just pray and ask God to please lead us and lead the doctors. Take care of yourself and stay in touch!

Sam, I understand what you mean, and you are not alone. My husband was diagnosed two years ago with a PSA of 120, Gleason 9, already spread to the lymph nodes. He has been on hormone therapy for those two years and feels fine, other than the side affects of the HDT. His PSA is currently less than 1.

We all need to stick together and help each other as best we can. I hope your Dad does well with his treatment.

Hi Sam,
Regardless of stage your input at this site can be very helpful for others, if not yourself. My current staging is pT3b. While your father is more advanced, my age, 44, PSA 19.8, Gleason 7 (4+3) make me a candidate, as I've been told a probability, to be at your fathers stage at a much younger age than he is. I maintain a window of hope and have taken the dam.n the torpedoes approach and will have completed all the traditional cancer fighting procedures by the end of fall. While my PSA did drop to 0.0 after seven weeks, my oncologist has stated that this is still very likely to come back and at that time it will be stage IV. For now, I stay positive. You have to as well regardless of the staging. Your father is blessed to have you around to keep up the hope and faith.

Good luck in your story. I good outcome is still possible. Never give up.

Tony