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thoughts on what I should do.

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 7 hours ago | Replies (22)

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@northoftheborder

So sorry to hear your news

Some people here have mentioned that it *is* possible to have surgery after radiation these days, unlike in the past. Perhaps one of them will share the info (I don't know it myself).

The other situations where radiation is recommended when you're still young are when there's suspected local spread (radiation can get cancer just outside the prostate, while surgery can't) or if there's already distant metastasis, as was my situation at age 56.

While there are lots of nuances, surgery and radiation have the same overall survival rate, so "just having it removed" doesn't necessarily improve your chances over radiating it. Both surgery and radiation can have long term side-effects, so again, no free pass.

Have you been offered genetic testing? That can help refine how likely it is that the cancer will spread, though nothing is for certain, of course.

Best of luck!

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Replies to "So sorry to hear your news Some people here have mentioned that it *is* possible to..."

You can get savage surgery after radiation, but they essentially just scrape out the goo that is leftover. It is still generally recommended, at least by all 9 of my docs, to do surgery first because radiation can cause side effects that may not manifest for 10-20 years down the road and salvage radiation is preferred over salvage prostatectomy as second options. Plus you can get 100% results on your cancer once the prostate is out and able to be analyzed.