F8 said...
my fear of immediate and permanent incontinence and ED greatly outweighs my fear of secondary cancers years later. but when that surgeon looks you in the eye and says "with surgery you will always have radiation as a back-up but not the other way around" he knows he gots you.
ed
Yeah but they rarely inform your the success rate of SRT is only about
30%
"Pratoman:Yeah, I'm not up,to clinical trials/experimental therapies yet LOL"
I was a lot more scared of radical surgery than any clinical trials. In fact I'm the one mentioned by Tim. People in 2007-08 here thought I had a death wish. That's how it was back then even brachytherapy was looked down on for no educated reason. Just Pca fear, and most thought radical surgery was the only way to go. Well now it's 6+ years later and I'm the most successfully treated man here. Even with that if I had been diagnosed today I'd elect for AS. Low risk PCa is massively over treated, and as always you're more likely to die with it than of it if you do nothing. The only side effect for most will be a longer normal life.
Also many doctors urge patient sometimes 70 or 65 years of age to undergo brachytherapy over radical surgery for at that age its no only easier to recover from but usually has less and more minor if any SEs to recover from. Too me quality of life and continence were my priorities. You're reacting to low grade Pca more like a 50 year old than a guy close to medicare age.
As i said before I never panicked even after my first uro lied to me and said I'd be dead in 7 years if I did nothing. I was first leaning to radical surgery then brachytherapy until I learned of a great less invasive procedure called TFT which I elected to do. If not I would've done brachy then for after my initial scare I never ever wanted surgery. Perhaps that came from here where so many then were going into operating rooms vibrant middle aged men and leaving them elderly. When your life revolves around urinating....now I'm not wired that way. good luck but don't be so quick to dismiss trial procedures for those are done by many of the more brilliant researching doctors. And once treated radically there are no do overs. BTW if my Pca comes back I still have all radical treatments to choose from and whatever new develops.