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DiscussionAcceptance of Prostate Cancer and its side effects
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Mar 30 4:21pm | Replies (29)Comment receiving replies
Replies to "The more I read on this forum, the more I am leaning towards no treatment of..."
I remember the feeling trying to decide what to do, but two years later I'm glad I did the RALP, with fairly similar information going in. I'm here because I've continued to learn as I face the journey. It was pretty hard to sort out things in the ten weeks or so between my first mpMRI and the RALP. In those ten weeks I was definitely inclined toward active surveillance or at least focal therapy. I understand better now why I was directed toward RALP in my situation.
While personally I can imagine taking the risk and keeping on going, those close to me were definitely not ready to sign up for a likely shorter lifespan.
On the other hand, my cousin seems to wish he hadn't done the RALP and my uncle, who has a complicating medical condition, has now done active surveillance, ADT, and more, and he would say we each should make our own choice.
In the ProtecT study, 75% of the men in the Active Surveillance group went on to have some form of treatment. So it is not comparing treatments vs no treatment, EVER. What we don't know is how many men will eventually have metastatic disease if they are NEVER treated before they die of something else. I'm sure it's higher than the 9.4% reported in the study for AS. I watched my father suffer and then die from bone metastases 8 years after his radiation for prostate cancer. I would not want to live with that cloud hanging over my head at an unknown percent chance, possibly as high as 50%.
Here is an article which models the projected outcomes of no treatment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091266/
Radiation doesn’t damage rectum so far as SPACE OARS jelly protects the colon, installed thru perineum prior to RT. A new product on the market. I had RT a year ago, no rectum side effects yet.
I was at first encouraged by the ProtecT results, too. But as someone elsewhere has noted, being 15 years out means the treatments that were followed up on are older treatments; current treatments would be expected to yield different results, no?