Prostate Cancer at 52

I was diagnoised with PC in 10/31/12. I am 52 years old 6'2 215lbs. I have talked to several Urologist and everyone said it was up to me to decide either radiation or surgery.

On 11/6/2012 I visited the Cancer Treatment Center of America in Goodyear, Az (30 min west of Phoenix) and I was very impressed with the facility. I met with Dr. Lanceford Chong a Radiation Oncologist and his staff. They were very helpful and answered all the questions and concerns. I now am schedule to have the HDR Brachytherapy on 12/17/17.

Stats:

Gleason 3+3=6

Cancer Stage -T1

I decided it go with the HDR Brachytherapy because of less side effects and I was very impressed with Dr. Chong at CTCA.

I have a couple of suggestions:

1.  Get a second opinion on your biopsy slides by a lab that specializes in prostate cancer pathology, e.g. Epstein at Johns Hopkins or Bostwick Labs.

2.  If you have a low number of cores and low percentage of cancer and a low PSA, you might consider active surveillance as some of the other folks have suggested.  There is some chance you have indolent cancer that may never need any treatment.

3.  Assuming you opt for treatment, either HDR or LDR brachytherapy should be good choices.  Either provides high likelihood of cure without the likelihood of the more onerous side effects of surgery.  Doing due diligence, you probaly want to talk with specialists who perform each type of brachy so that you are well informed.

4.  Whomever you choose, make sure they have done hundreds of procedures and will be doing the procedure themselves and not just supervising a rookie.

5.  I considered Cyber-knife as well as the science makes sense but there just was not enough long term data on cure rates or side effects to suit me.  Perhaps there is more data now.

I was a LDR brachy guy and please feel free to copy and paste my"journey" which is shown at the end of my signature.

Good luck and please keep us posted on your process.

Jim