Shelf life of systemic therapy

There’s no way of knowing how long our current Lupron plus Erleada will last. It could be a few months it could be years. Everyone with prostate cancer Is different.

Pluvicto is another option for you, You can do it before chemo and it is very successful with some of the people that use it.

Have you had genetic testing? That really is important with the state of cancer that you have. You can Get free, genetic testing at. Prostatecancerpromise.org Please have a counselor will call you to discuss You jinglethe results

Chemo does not change your life, Yes, while you are on it, it can be not too bad or a real pain, Again, no two people are the same. I was in an Ancan.org Advanced prostate cancer meeting today and one guy came in and said he was doing chemo but after doing chemo, for 10 days, he couldn’t eat food, didn’t taste good. He lost a lot of weight then he’d have a few days where he’d recovered completely, ate a lot of food, then back to the next chemo session. The other people that said they were just uncomfortable for a few days after, had to rest to recover.

As for types of chemo, I have heard that Cabazitaxel is easier than docetaxel on body.

Once chemo is over for many people, it stops the cancer from coming back for a long time.

I'll mostly echo what Jeff wrote. We know from the TITAN study that Erleada (Apalutamide) + ADT hadn't reached median overall survival after 4 1/2 years, when the study ended, and that many participants may have had cancer for years before that (a de-novo diagnosis wasn't a requirement for participation), so that's a solid number, at least.

They have to call our treatment "palliative" because it isn't designed to eliminate cancer (there's no way yet to cure metastatic prostate cancer), but that doesn't mean that it's just designed to keep us comfortable in our final years. My first oncologist told me that he'd had some patients go over 10 years with no advancement, and they must have started even before the -lutamides became available (maybe older, less-effective ARSIs like Zytiga/Abiraterone initially??).

So short answer: we don't know. Erleada/Apalutamide was approved for general use only in 2018, I think, and wasn't added to the formulary here in Ontario until early 2022 (I got a special authorisation from the Ministry of Health to start on it in 2021). Unless they participated in a study like TITAN, no one has been on it for a decade yet. We're the group that they'll study to see how long this new systemic therapy can last (maybe indefinitely for many of us). That's both exciting and nerve-wracking.

Thanks so much for your insights!

So I just completed my first month of suppressive therapy (Lupron and Erleada) and my PSA went from 2.9 ng/mL
to .02 ng/mL , a dramatic change in a short time. While I'm pleased at the results, I'm not naive enough to think that this trend will go on indefinitely. Let's see where the numbers are in six months and then in a year.

Congrats — that's an extremely-promising result.

It's wise to stay cautious, and everyone's reaction will be different, but my PSA dropped from 67.9 before I started ADT + Erleada in October 2021, to 11.6 in November, to < 0.01 in February 2022 — all before the radiation to my prostate — and hasn't budged since.

That doesn't mean I'm not nervous every 3 months before my bloodwork, but the Erleada (Apalutamide) really seems to be doing its job so far.

nparadisum,

Can I ask you about your post-op path report from 2005....you stated you were Gleason 6 in another post....was Gleason 6 your post-op score or your initial biopsy.
Bascially, what was your post-op pathology?

You are the 1st person I have found in 15 years with progression if you truly were Gleason 6 post op.....supposedly it has no metastatic potential if only 3+3 was found after surgery. Just curious.

Everyone with prostate cancer Is different.,,

All I can say..., well, well, well, say it ain't so

I wrote a little poem for the thread:

Eventually, we all fade away.
But not today,
No, not today.