My thoughts you should have gotten further opinions and had knowledge of what a nomogram is, the only possible reason for surgery on a patient with those kind of stats would be to "debulk" overall tumor burden, no way for curative. I have never seen any patient with stats even close to that with cure at 10 yrs. out, or even probably 5 yrs. out afte surgery. You should join this group for further information (worldwide):
www.hrpca.org atleast you can find the kind of answers and questions that will be helpful. The Lupron, Zoladex kept your psa down for awhile and masks what surgery alone would show for psa numbers and your doc knows all these wonderful things.
You have options that are not so profittable for your doc, but probably profittable for you, start studying them: DES, estradiol patch, emcyt, ketoconazole and others (these can work against refractive PCa, when those high priced drugs you got stop working) These drugs are used by some oncologist docs, although no uro-doc will probably give them to anyone. Dr. Fred Lee inventor of cyro therapy is a PCa patient himself, he has or still is using emcyt for maybe 8-10 yrs. now with fabulous results, which he has a written piece about
. He must be dumb for not doing Lupron (LOL)??? Emcyt also costs way less too.
You just entered the Twlight Zone (humor intended), I had high stats and bad prognosis, switched from Lupron/Zoladex after 2 yrs. of fun on ADT3 combo with Lupron, went to DES, huge differences, still working well 6 yrs. later with it and costs about
nothing (no patents) and if someone actually reads Journal of Urology article Nov. 2003 about
it...would find out all the pluses on it vs. Lupron and other LHRH drugs. Alot of docs use scare tactics and tell people this drug will cause blood clots and therefore kill you, that is not what the Journal article says and is not the whole truth at all. Oncologist docs would evaluate your risk factors and probably give you coumadin blood thinner along with it as protection, plus Journal says 1-mg dose is considered generally safe, in the old days it was given in 5-mg w/o blood thinner some got clots. What is failed to be mentioned about
the old days, (drug was used on PCa for 3-4 decades and still is),it worked well in patients for control for some very well. Just no money in it and plenty in the drugs which are pushed unto us. (Oh is pushed to harsh?- google lawsuits on Lupron (Tap Pharma) and on Zoladex (Astrazeneca) Learn PCa history, these are the good guys? These docs whom joined in this, these are the good guys, putting the patient first (LOL) bribed to make sales, caught, court finded them collectively over $700 million dollars (the cost of doing business?)...it is the same profit ideas on other therapies, usually they do not prescribe the cheaper stuff, look at the costs of these:
Leukine, Chemo, Zometa, Provenge ($93K), and many others...yeap nobody is trying to cashin on us patients. All is fair in this game, patients are on a level playing field, never given agenda, biased or marketed too or taken advantage off. All patients are given full disclosure on all options, drugs possible, all side effects, even told to go get further opinions????
This is what we are up against, so hire and fire docs if necessary, get what is best for you or your choices, find an oncologist which is where you are right now, no uro-doc should be treating you or radiologist either. Or you can stay with your current doc and witness what I mentioned. If you have the money seek out the top PCa oncologists in the USA, and you will notice a dramatic difference in their approach and knowlege of this beast. No cures, better care, quality of life, longer life... those small differences that you might be interested in. I am trying to help you and make a point to others, yeah it is not coombye ya reading, you need alot more than that for this part of the journey in PCa. Best to you I mean you no harm I would like to slow down the profit taking off of patients (taking advantage of the ill is lower than low) , some more references:
www.paactusa.org (has newletters, phone consultation free too)
www.pcref.org (Dr. Barken)
www.prostate-help.org
www.hrpca.org
www.yananow.net
www.ustoo.org
www.prostate-pointers.org
Dr. Strums book: A Primer on Prostate Cancer (you should read it closely)