Day 60 PSA on Firmagon and Xtandi (update 5/29/17)

Finally, 6.5 years after discovering I have PCa, my PSA is back to .01.

I did a happy dance Friday afternoon!

As you can see in my signature below, I was diagnosed with PCa in 2010; treated with Proton Therapy in 2011; treated with Cryoablation in 2015. The lowest the PSA got was .31 before it rebounded.

Turn the page.

I began monthly Firmagon treatments in June of 2016. I became castration resistant after 5-6 months. We added Xtandi to the treatment regimen on February 17, 2016 when the PSA was up to 2.38.

Now, the good news. PSA on March 17th was .07 and (drum roll please) yesterday, April 21st it was .01.

Needless to say I am happy. I'm afraid to get too happy, though.

Hopefully, I'll get a year or two ride on this.

I'm scheduled for the Quarterly bone and CT scans on May 26th at which point I want to discuss other options for hitting the PCa while it's in the retreat/regroup mode. My research shows that Provenge may be appropriate at this point.

I'd appreciate any input from the club as to any ideas on additional treatments that might be appropriate while we have it on the run.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tony

UPDATE: Friday (5/26) was my quarterly visit to Duke with bloodwork and bone scan/CT. I received good news. My psa is undetectable (down from 2.38 three months ago) and the two suspicious lymph nodes are clear. Woo hoo!

We discussed hitting the PCa with PROVENGE while it's on the run. Fortunately, I have two insurance plans (United Health and Tricare). Between the two, Doc believes it shouldn't be a problem getting it approved. Hopefully, we can get that rolling in June or July.

Additionally, the AUS implant recovery is going very well. Three weeks until activation.

Provenge has worked for a number of our guys.

Worth looking into.
Andrew

Tony-

Congratulations on the great response to Xtandi! There is a correlation between the nadir achieved and how long it's likely to last, so it augurs well.

Being non-metastatic and castration resistant puts you in an "in between" status where most new drugs and clinical trials don't apply to you. But if your doctor was able to get you Xtandi, he may be able to get the others as well.

I think you may qualify for the NIH Prostvac study:

/clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02649439

If I were in your situation, the study I would be most hopeful about getting into would be the Lu-177-PSMA study for non-metastatic castration-resistant men. It uses a nuclear medicine to kill metastatic cancer cells that are too small to be detected. I notice that one of the test sites is Georgetown, which is not too far from you. I don't think they'll be recruiting much longer, so you may want to call now:

/clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00859781