dkob,
Good morning. I dont have a direct answer to your question but I can let you know what I was told for my case.
I was first a gleason 6 T1C, cancer with a small percentage showing up in the needle sticks. All three surgeons I interviewed said I had a 1% chance of it being in the lymph nodes. Two University Docs said no way to take them out and the family Doc said he would take them out. He planned on being very very aggresive as a standard protocol.
As far as the term cure you will hear it used in many different ways. Some say cure, some say remission. some say in treatment. This whole process is a chain of events with the more you do the more you learn. With surgery there is pre and post op conditions and plans. Mine was to take it out and get a "cure". Now with one bad margin we look for PSA levels and then think what to do next if there are any PSA levels (cure maybe not). With out the bad margin we would do the same thing, check PSA at 6 weeks and 3 months and so on. Now I have heard others reference that if no PSA in 5 years that they were cured? Others I heard say that only surgery can, not always, provide a cure but all the other treatments are just that treatments.
I am sorry to say but there aren't many direct answers I have found. One that I know too well is PSA doubling is important before surgery and is fairly accurate. PSA leveals after surgery are very accurate in determining subsequent treatment or not.
Also, why dont you go to the control panel at top left and at the bottom do a short history of your situation. Others look at that and contact you for they are ofter similar like you did. You can see a sample of mine below.
Take care I hope this helps a little.
Frank