Hormone dependent cells vs. hormone independent cells

I got to hand you an applause too Casey(59) you have done apparently alot of homework and it shows. I actually liked hearing you respectfully disagreeing we me , you mentioned earlier although it is not a big deal to me anyway, hope that catches on in forums. Bravo!

 

Hey guys,
Sorry for the slow responses this holiday season. I have been out of town and out of pocket frequently. I see a couple comments directed at me so here is what I know:

@ Casey
Casey, the gentleman is a dear friends father. He knows little about prostate cancer other than being diagnosed and treated with surgery. He did not have a PSA test obviously because the case was before PSA. Someone somewhere probably knows the Gleason at biopsy/surgery, but he does not. Records are not available. However it is possible to determine Gleason in distant or local presence. I have heard quite q few times when guys had their lymph nodes removed and found positive that a Gleason is assigned. This was the first pathology report I had seen that had determined that cancer in the bladder was a spread of prostate cancer and had a Gleason assigned. It was 5+5=10. His bladder is no use to him as he has leaked for much of the past few years.

@ Jerry L,
Jerry this patient had the orchiectomy with his surgery. He has not produced testosterone since 1981 so no he was not on any medication to limit the production of it. He did start getting PSA tests about a 15 years ago but had not had any since about 10. I think his doctors felt he was "home free"?

I have lots of questions about this case, too, but many answers are unavailable. 29 years to relapse probably still lists him as cured if in any study, which I would be pretty sure it is no longer being tracked, and in fact "cured" is an ambiguous term anyway. At this point this gentleman's health is failing in many other ways including now with growing dementia.

Happy New Year to all,

Tony

Casey,
One member here may be able to shed some light on this mystery. Livinadream, Dale, had his lymph nodes dissected and was assigned a Gleason 4+4=8 in the LN's. He is being treated at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. His prostate Gleason is Gleason 9.

But I have the pathology from my friends father in front of me and a Gleason was indeed assigned. When I spoke to Nick Vogelzang about it he said that Gleason scores in distant mets are sometimes assigned and sometimes not. But rather at this point, the fact that mets are present are the clear and present danger.

Tony