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Why would my doctors recommend surgery over radiation?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Feb 10 6:38pm | Replies (36)Comment receiving replies
You were so thorough on your comments. Good job on educating all of us. My husband, Jim, is set up for the pacer surgery on 3-14-24. He will do a CT and MRI scans on 3-15-24. I'm presuming that Proton Beam therapy will begin the following week. After reading everything on hormone therapy, he has decided not to have it. They are recommending 18 months of Eligard. He thinks that the potential side effects of possible stroke and heart attacks for all the hormone medications is not worth the risk. He hasn't informed the radiologist yet. Has anyone done the proton Beam therapy without hormones? He was originally going to have a RP but the surgeon said that his prostate is on the large side and he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't have major urine challenges. The surgeon is the person that recommended radiation. He is 73 and in very good health otherwise.
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Having a surgeon recommend radiation is a cause for celebration believe me! They almost always recommend the knife (if all you have is a hammer…)
The hormone decision is a tough one - facing it myself. Since my cancer came back after surgery it must be pretty tough so I am not taking any chances - gonna do them along with radiation to weaken this thing as much as possible and hopefully kill it. I am working closely with cardiologist and he gave me BP and cholesterol meds and aspirin to lessen effects of hormones on the rest of the body and hopefully prevent stroke or heart attack. If your husband has a high Gleason or Decipher score that would be the best indicator of how aggressive his cancer is. You don’t want to go thru proton therapy and then NOT kill the cancer….then it’s a life of hormones, right?
He really has to talk to the radiologist and get as much info as he can. Best of luck to you both!
AL