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Posted 6/16/2009 8:23 PM (GMT 0)
Read this article today on a study and was thinking, am I overly optimistic to live past 20 more years after my intial treatment of localized pc?? Based on this article saying this is the case?? My ? is if not 20 years what is my expectancy based on treatment, are these publsihed anywhere?

http://prostatecancerinfolink.net/2009/06/15/what-newly-diagnosed-patients-expect-from-prostate-cancer-treatment/

Posted 6/16/2009 9:55 PM (GMT 0)
SHU93...I think the premise was average life expectancy for Males in the US is 75.4 years...that is the average. The study you sited stated that non-disease life expectancy of the cohorts surveyed was 22.9 years...which meant that the average age was around 52. In your case I would expect you to live far longer than the 20 years. Statistics can be fun...but use them with extreme caution when putting yourself into some statistic involving mortality, because you are not a statistic. As you have read, many many men live much longer than the average shown above...with and without prostate cancer.
Posted 6/16/2009 10:46 PM (GMT 0)
As some of the follow-up comments for the original article point out, this was a small study. Extrapolating from "not much" is dangerous.

In any case, it seems to come down to (a) comorbidities, and (b) metastasis/recurrence. If you don't get recurrence, then your life expectancy is mostly up to your lifestyle/vices and your genes (comorbidities). Sloan-Kettering and U Montreal, among others, have nomograms on the probability of metastasis/recurrence for various fact situations, and Sloan-Kettering has one for general life expectancy without PC given race and current age.

Just bear in mind that the survival numbers in those nomograms that give 10 year expectancy, for example, are based on guys that had surgery at least 10 years ago. Things have gotten better since.

However, the "1 percent in 15 years" figure is one that I can't cross-foot with anything I know from other sources. Maybe 15 percent in 15 years, given the Gleason 6-7 number that the article quotes.
Posted 6/16/2009 10:56 PM (GMT 0)
I really don't get the point of the article. Men who expect to live longer get more surgery, isn't that obvious.

The other thing is with the demise of smoking and the force feeding of lipitor I would expect life avgs to climb rapidly the next few decades. I really don't think 75 will be the norm 20 years from now.
Posted 6/17/2009 12:26 AM (GMT 0)
Hi SHU,
As usual, my friend, Mike Scott puts together another great blog entry. Depending on who you are, life expectancy ycan be more defined in your bloodlines. But the stats in this article reflect what you will see posted soon by major advocacy groups. No surprise, Mike is a board member or founder of many of them.

Thanks for the post, SHU.

Tony
Posted 6/17/2009 1:17 PM (GMT 0)
Here is a link to the full article


www.jabfm.org/cgi/content/full/22/3/247?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=expectations&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT

Essentially it says that newly diagnosed PC patients think that they will die sooner if not treated and live longer if treated than the actual statistical data shows.

Well, the theme of this board is pretty much learn about your disease and learn about your options. So this study shows why we exist.
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