Skypilot56 said...
Good Morning gang, was reading an article on PCA which talked about at what point a PCA patient could declare they are cured? ... if you have been undetectable for 5 yrs it no longer comes into play. So I'm curious at what point does a person consider themselves cured or are we always in remission?
Similar question here, but no license involved as I am retired and not a pilot. Anyway, my Lupron sentence is almost over. July will be the first time that I do NOT get another injection. I think in a recent thread it was referred to as "release". The subject has also been discussed in this thread already.
My doc says about
a year, so I'm guessing that means July 2019. But what then? In a year the Lupron will still be just wearing off. Given a six month half life, then there will still be about
25% of the Lupron in my system. I've been getting PSA's & T level check every three months since RT ended, and not sure at this point if that will continue and for how long.
My wife has been in "full remission" for a year now as declared by her hemo-oncologist. She tells me that I am also in full remission, but I say no, not remission YET, I am currently "NED" or no evidence of disease. Furthermore I still tell people I won't know whether or not I am in remission until 2020.
The logic being that once I am a full year since "release" in one year, July 2019, only THEN will the PSA tests become meaningful, essentially unmasked by the Lupron (though still having <25% Lupron remaining). Starting July 2019 then the next three consecutive PSA's will tell the truth, or nearly so anyway. If they are at six month intervals then it will be July 2020 before having those three PSA's.
In reality I understand that it will be when T-level actually returns
and stabilizes, only then will PSA's also stabilize and give a true indication of remission status. What I've read is that we are never truly
cured. I know a man now 82 who had RP and SRT twenty years ago and he says his PSA is 0.00 and he is cured. I think after twenty years that is probably so. But as long as we see cases here of BCR after more than five years, I'll be hesitant to call myself cured. Instead will still be looking at ten year overall survival stats. After ten years, yeah, then I'll call myself cured.