Hydrogel (SpaceOAR) botched
I had fiducial markers and the spaceOAR inserted. Two weeks after this was done I noticed blood and pus in my stool and I never had that before. It was diagnosed as an infection in my rectum and sure enough after finally getting antibiotics a month later, the blood and pus disappeared. I was to get 28 treatments of proton beam therapy. I never started it due to the infection and damage to my rectum. My question: how long should I wait before doing radiation and can I use spaceOAR or balooons to protect the rectum. Colonoscopy done six months later confirmed that a rectal ulcer was still present.
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This is in reply to ranger44, and is a bit off topic for this "SpaceOAR" thread.
I too have a low Decipher (0.18, even lower than yours, which puts me in their 14th percentile of risk). They say my "10-Year Risk of Metastasis" is just under 1%, BUT that prediction is only IF I GET WHOLE-PROSTATE THERAPY ( WP radiation therapy or radical prostatectomy).
Although age 78 and with some cardiac issues, the VA's new multi-factor lifespan predictor (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euo.2023.11.023) says I have a good chance (more than 25%) of living another 15 years. So what to do?
Long-term (15 year) statistics simply don't yet exist for the newer therapies - they haven't been around long enough yet.
Do I treat now to improve my odds while I am healthy enough to endure the side effects? Or do I wait - with active surveillance - and hope for the best. If I go the active surveillance route, and only intervene if and when it becomes necessary, it basically triples my small (2%) chance that I will end up with metastasis (and chemotherapy) in my final years, versus if I treat now.
If my Decipher report tells me what my risk is if - like you - I choose the active surveillance route, I don't see it. (I wish it did, but it doesn't).
It's our choice, with no way to know for sure what the outcome would have been had we chosen otherwise. - in other words, a crapshoot.
Doctors cannot predict the spread rate for each individual. I did not trust the PSA tests every 3 months to decide whether there was going to be further spread or not. I found the radiation machine that had the least impact on healthy tissue and got it done. I had the Decipher test, spaceoar and 5 hypo fractional treatments in February 2023.