Concerned and baffled

My father was diagnosed with Prostate cancer last week. 72 years old and in otherwise very good health. Gleason scale 9 - not good. Heres what baffles me. He has had urinating symptoms for ten years and has been consistently under the care of a urologist. Prostate has been needle biopsied 4 times since 1995 - all negative. As the difficulty urinating became a problem, he underwent surgery last February to remove a portion of the prostate, it was biopsied - again negative. After the surgery he consistently had blood in his urine, the doctor re-scheduled him for surgery which he had two weeks ago. This time the biopsy came back positive with the 9 rating. He has started hormone therapy and is scheduled for a bone scan.

The thing I dont understand is my Dad could be the poster boy for preventative medicine. Can prostate cancer of this severity come out of nowhere like this? the doctor said this is unfortunate but fairly common - I have my doubts.

Any info on similar stories would be helpful; I'm just starting to deal with this

Thanks  Brian

Post Edited (Brian3296) : 9/9/2006 12:04:04 PM (GMT-6)

Brian,

Without a lot of  the specific detail, here are a few general comments:

Enlarged prostate symptoms, volume of cancer, and agressiveness of the cancer / gleason score, are not necessarily related.

Look at the recent posting here, "Small volume cancer PSA 20  G 8"

Someone can have a PV which is small in size,  but it can still be an agressive cancer. 

Determining the gleason score is a subjective process: a 2nd opinion can result in a different rating.