Stop Anti-Androgen therapy before Robotic Prostatectomy???

Have not heard of this, in fact it is preferable to sometimes shrink the gland before surgery.

No way to respond to this without more information. Have you been in consult directly with the Dr.?

Please tell us more.

Scott

I have heard of it and cannot verify that it is completely truthful even though out of the words from another PCa-surgeon at a support group when I asked him this question a few years ago. I am hip shooting but doing this from memory as this was 5-6 yrs. ago I heard this, it shrinks the gland and kind of makes it more of like a sticky mess or similar concept, so cutting it out is more difficult and the surgeon does not need more difficulty. The LRRP surgery video that Tony has herein somewhere, gives us a heads up on how difficult a normal gland is to do.

pcBeGone:

You can get quite a few varied opinions on this from surgeons, I actually had the therapy before surgery thinking that I might go with radiation instead of surgery, the rad onco assured me that the therapy would not preclude me from surgery if I decided that way.  When I informed the surgeon I chose to do the surgery(DaVinci) he was supportive and didn't think that it would cause any complications.  He did say that it took a little longer than usual for the surgery to be completed but that it wasn't a big deal.

There are some positives and negatives that came from the therapy.  My path report denoted that the tumor had been shrunk substantially meaning that if there was more therapy needed it was obvious that Casodex and Lupron would work very well. I also had the peace of mind knowing that during the lag time from diagnosis to surgery that there would be no further cancer growth which was a huge load off of my mind. It also gave me time to look into all of my options and not feel rushed to make a decision.

The negative was since the medicine did such a good job on the tumor they could not get a defenitive Gleason score on the path report.  I had three reviews of my needle biopsy so I had a pretty good idea what we were dealing with.

The statement that this therapy is akin to "salvage therapy" is way off base.  There are a few guys on this site who have gone the same route as me and had good results. 

Remember, each case is different and we can only give you our personal experience. No one has all of the answers.

Good luck

David 

  

They only thing that I have heard is that Hormone therapy does something to the nerves that makes nerve sparing procedure very difficult. It should not have any affect other than shrinking the prostate and tumor.
JohnT