Yananow case histories-stories: The non-treatment guy Squarf (prepare to read)

First of all, I will say that I don't consider myself a Luddite and if I had Gleason 7, I would be in for surgery immediately. However, I think the post by Squarf brings up a point of view that is not being given near enough consideration by the urological community.

Now I don't believe that biopsies are likely to spread cancer to to other sites in the body and I'm not attempting to discourage anyone who has significant symptoms of prostate cancer from having a biopsy. However, there is the point of view, and this is controversial, that poking a biopsy needle into the cancer causes inflammation, which could encourage cancer growth of a fairly dormant cancer. So maybe we have to revisit biopsies, or better yet search harder for viable alternatives, in asymptomatic men.

"Our findings suggest that promoting inflammation of the cancerous tissue, for instance, by performing prostate biopsies, may, ironically, hasten progression of metastasis," said Karin.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070318230323.htm

I don't know the answers and would welcome hearing alternative viewpoints. I'm finding that prostate cancer is one of those subjects where the more research I do, the more confused I get.

I have wondered - what if I did nothing?

The only way I know I have PCa is from the Doctors findings - and now the great HF's and other fun things that go along with HT - like a total lack of erection.

With my PSA off the charts - and the fact it has spread to the bones - Hopefully the treatments will add years to my life - and I will not suffer fractures and all the things that go along with PCa in the bones.

I made my choice - I think it was the right thing to do.

Bud

It is not only guys who have had apparently successful treatments who wonder whether they might just as well have done nothing.  My dad, after being diagnosed with what the pathologist reported as a Gleason 7 tumor (psa 14 or so) had a Lupron shot, external beam radiation, then when the cancer recurred, Casodex and Lupron for some time, zoledex, a second biopsy, then a salvage cryo procedure, a pulmonary embolism following that procedure (so anti-coagulant shots every day for life), ketoconazole and prednisone, then taxotere, biopsies of several other organs to determine the extent of mets, spot radiation to bones, three other semi-experimental chemotherapies, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting.  In the end, he died around 7 years after diagnosis.  Maybe he would have lived the same 7 years without any treatment at all?  Or a bit less, but better quality?  As the famous quote from Ain't Misbehavin' said, "one never know, do one"?

 

Zufus,
Great story and pretty funny.

I asked my current oncologist, who is very well read and up to date, the proverbial question about can a prostate biopsy spread cancer. He said that there has never been a single verified case of that ever happening, and that even if remotely possible, the odds would be astronomonical at the least. He said it was more of an urban myth rather than being based on any thing factual.

david

We do what we do and we live with it, anybody got a better way?

It's interesting to hear the latest news from Squarf, still alive and well as of this year. He disappeared completely for a while, and I wasn't sure whether PCa got him, or whether he continued with other interests like the voluptuous Squishalie Doodlebug Provolone

What he did was a gamble of course, and the odds were in his favor ~ akin to Russian roulette. Not for everyone.