Is age a factor?

Have this week been diagnosed with prostate cancer following 6 months of tests and treatments to rule out other possibilities. 

Consecutive blood tests show a high PSA. My Gleason score was 6 (3+3). 50% of my biopsies were cancerous.

 I have looked around the site a little but most comments are from older men - I am 46. Does this make a difference?

 I have looked for statistics to help me but I have found that they cover all sufferers and 80% of those are over 80.

My consultant has recomended radical surgery. I have read the side effects and fear these.

I am scared and cannot focus enough on it to make a rational decision.

To make things worse, my wife lost her brother relatively recently to cancer at the age of 26 - he died within 4 months of diagnosis. I am not comparing myself to him but am pointing out the huge emotional effect that this is having on her also.

What to do? What to expect?  

Mit,
I was ten years older than you at dx, but still relatively young. I had similar concerns to Greg's and chose to look elsewhere when my uro suggested surgery. I am very glad that I did. I found a clinic which offers numerous treatments for PC. I felt that was the only way I could get some objective opinions about all forms of treatment. Take some time with your decision: it is an important one.
God Bless.

Hi mitan, and welcome to our little corner of the world. You have come to a good place with immeasurable help and knowledge from those that have "been there, done that" with respect to being told we have PCa, learning about the beast, deciding on a treatment path and moving on. Please keep in mind that with your statistics you have time - time to learn about PCa and the various treatment options, including AS as GregZ stated - so don't panic!

Regarding your question about age - I also agree with Terry's point that with greater awareness of this cancer comes more positive diagnosis, including those at a younger age. I am a few years older than you and in excellent physical shape, always hearing that I look 10 years younger than my age - so I can relate to that part of your concern. You may have read a lot about PSA testing, recently there has been some challenges about over treating - which should not be confused with over testing. With your stats testing is a good thing - but that doesn't mean you need to panic and jump into a treatment decision!

You stated that 50% of your sample biopsies came back positive - could you share how many samples were taken? And also how much involvement in the 50% that came back positive? If you have not received a copy of the report you should get your hands on one, as there will be more information that you will want to be aware of - things like any perineural invasion present, "N" categories that describe whether the cancer has spread to nearby (regional) lymph nodes, "M" categories that describe whether the cancer has spread to distant parts of the body. You will also want to know what your "T" category is, there are 4 categories in this that describe the local extent of a prostate tumor, ranging from T1 to T4.

Have you gotten a 2nd read on your biopsy slides yet, and if not I would encourage you to do so - Bostwick and Epstein are two of the most recommended labs to send them to.

Sorry if I am overloading on your here, but I guess my suggestion at this point would be for you to first and foremost understand your own, current PCa statistics.

Along with forums such as this where you can learn from people that have and are going through what you are - and there are a number of younger guys like yourself out here - do as much internet research as you can. When I was at your point in my journey I encountered the "paralysis by analysis" syndrome as I was spending several hours a day doing all of the research and reading as much as I could - but that's o.k. as it will put you in a better place in terms of deciding what you need to do next.

If AS is determined to not be an option at this time, there are a number of great books out there as well for you to start learning about the various treatment options - Dr. Patrick Walsh's "Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer" and Strum and Scholz' "Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers" are two that I found incredibly helpful during that part of my journey.

We are all out here to help - my very best wishes to you in this journey.

Mitan,

Yooper is a relatively new member in this forum and he gave you some great advice (he usually does). I remember when he first joined and how scared and confused he was with his diagnoses. He also had a URO who pushed for immediate surgery but after listening to so many of us in here offering advice from our own experiences he made an intelligent treatment decision that so far has worked and met his expectations. Yooper has come a long way and IMHO now offers newbies like you some really good advice like he got last year from many of us older members.

Terry

Terry and Michael - thanks for the comments, I am truly humbled. Terry, like you said, if it wasn't for all of the guys including you, and the gals too - I shudder to think where I would be today. Michael, it's nice to see that you too are now part of the "help group", sharing what you are going through so early in your journey will provide another layer of help to the new guys - thank you!

Mitan, as you can see there's one helluva group of folks out here that will help you along your journey. Keep learning, keep asking the questions!

mitan:

Please take a look at the CyberKnife Patient Forum. This question was recently asked. The poster got an answer from a radiation oncologist. You can find the CyberKnife Forum by doing a Google search or by going to the Accuray website ( manufacturer ) of the Cyber Knife machine. Good Luck.