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Any advice or shared experiences with SpaceOAR Hydrogel?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Mar 4 10:47am | Replies (25)Comment receiving replies
While you have a lot of Gleason scores, the only one that counts is the 4+3. Your Gleason score is a seven.
It is interesting how long they are putting you on ADT. NCCN guidelines show that you only need six months of ADT if you have a Gleason seven. 24 months is needed for a higher Gleason score. Your decipher score, however, is very high, Sounds like they are being real aggressive, Which may extend your life in the future, or may be overdoing it.
The SpaceOAR does make a lot Of sense. It does protect you with the radiation gets to be too wide spread while doing it. I can’t think of any reason why not to do it. Some radiation oncologist don’t like it, but yours does, which is a good thing.
In your case, doing 4 or 5 SBRT Sessions to the prostate could reduce the number of IMRT sessions by a lot.
Have you had a second opinion? The treatment you’re Planning on getting seems to be A little outdated. Have they explained why they are doing only doing IMRT.
I think it would make sense for you to go to a center of excellence and get a second opinion on what kind of treatment you should get.
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The Gleason 4+3 in several cores plus cribriform architecture and the Decipher score translates to high risk. I would want aggressive treatment. 24 months of ADT is reasonable unless you have really severe side effects. Most people can deal with the side effects of Lupron. I believe IMRT is often recommended for higher risk patients and can have fewer side effects than SBRT. Both are painless, so I don't see any compelling reason to resist IMRT. (I have similar biopsy results and had 24 months of Lupron as four six-month doses plus IMRT with SpaceOAR. Perhaps lucky to have the standard side effects, but nothing that was all that hard to deal with).