Purgatory said...
JNF, not to dispute your opinion, as none of us (self included) are medical experts, but I wouldn't subject anyone nearly 100 years old to any type of radiation, not even "spot" radiation. I don't feel the small hope of a gain would ever off-set the risks and/or potential side effects. Again, just one persons' opinion.
Slow down there, Purgatory. Let's see, first, if bertb returns to confirm whether or not his dad is even showing any symptoms yet, or not. To my knowledge, this point hasn't been clarified. I understand you concern, from your own personal experiences, that men may get exposed to
long-term radiation issues with the broader-beamed salvage radiation therapy (SRT) that seemed to have caused many of your problems...BUT for men experiencing the side effect of PAIN from bone mets (which we are not even sure, yet, if bertb's dad has) the pinpoint, spot radiation can be a godsend! Let's not jump the gun...but SRT is very different than spot radiation for pain. Not all radiation is evil.
bertb, I also offer you this copy/paste from the "Newly diagnosed..." sticky thread. Think about
whether this describes the high-level strategy your dad may want to take with respect to his PC diagnosis...
What is “WATCHFUL WAITING?”
Watchful Waiting (WW) is a strategy of using less intensive follow-up (fewer monitoring tests) and relying on changes in a man’s symptoms to decide if a treatment is needed. If symptoms appear, whether it is a lower urinary tract obstruction or bone pain from metastatic disease, treatment is introduced to relieve symptoms…so it is a palliative (not curative) therapy. This strategy is usually applied when the doctor & patient agree that he has fewer years of life expectancy and/or has other concomitant health problems, or because the patient believes strongly that he would prefer the risk of disease progression to the risks associated with aggressive treatments.
WW has been around a long time, but the fundamental basis for modern forms of this strategy is that one is trying to avoid receiving treatment of any type for as long as possible so that the patient may optimize his quality of life, while recognizing that it may be necessary in the long term to intervene so that he has minimal impact from the potential morbidity and mortality associated with prostate cancer.
WW may also be appropriate for a man who is suspected of having PC but for whom a biopsy is perhaps an unnecessary intrusion because of age or health. In such cases, even if a biopsy proved to be positive, curative therapy would not be recommended, which makes the biopsy somewhat futile.
We hope to hear back from you, bertb...
Post Edited (JackH) : 4/20/2016 12:49:02 PM (GMT-6)