PET scan?
Age 66, Gleason is 4+3=7 - intermediate unfavorable. I'm talking with doctors to decide between surgery and radiation. It's frustrating that there are no correlations between X data and X procedure but most of you have been there before. The radiation guy has ordered a PET Scan. I have questions for the urologist tomorrow. Do I have the PET scan if I choose surgery? Does ordering a PET scan suggest my cancer is likely to spread? I'd love to hear whether the PET is beneficial to me or just to the doctor? Many thanks.
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anosmic1, a PSMA/PET is whole body and will tell you if you have cancer outside the prostate that needs to be treated. Ordering the test is usual and does not indicate suspicion of metastasis. Even if you have surgery, you want the scan. Ask the urologist to order somatic (genetic) testing test of the tumor itself to gather data on the likelihood of metastisis. The testing is done from the biopsy sample already taken. There are several. Most on the sit talk about Decipher.
Thanks for that explanation.
The PET scan is very helpful and I would have one every chance I could. It takes about a half hour, but it tells your doctor a lot. And therefore you learn a lot. Your doctor is remiss if he doesn’t order a pet scan at least once a year, now that Medicare is paying for them.
As for the treatment of choice…… I had HDR breaking therapy and my cancer never went away and continued to spread and it was supposedly 99.5% the best choice. A close friend of mine was diagnosed the same week as me and had his prostate removed. His spread as well and he is no longer with us. So I don’t think any of them are a guarantee and it is more about how soon they catch it and how little it has progressed. Mine was stage four when it was diagnosed, and it has been a battle Constantly.