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No. Prostate Cancer is not the “good one”
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 19 hours ago | Replies (57)Comment receiving replies
Hi @cher60
While others get tidy little acinar glands and a pat on the back, I get the architectural equivalent of Swiss cheese, microscopic structures so dysfunctional, even pathologists raise an eyebrow. Apparently, cribriform cells are the overachievers of malignancy. They don’t just grow. They infiltrate. Quietly. Methodically. Like a tax audit with a scalpel.
So yes, I have cribriform cells. They’re the cancer cells with a LinkedIn profile; well-connected, structurally ambitious, and deeply uninterested in boundaries. Gleason 3+4, they say. But let’s not pretend the “4” is some misunderstood rebel. It’s the one picking locks and leaving notes on the nerve fibers.
Still, I manage. I even pretend, occasionally, that I’m doing fine. I mourn the man I once was, a blissfully ignorant soul with testosterone and no idea what a perineural invasion was. Thanks to ADT and radiation, that man now only exists in memories and loose-fitting underwear. But with the help of my psychiatrist wife (and a clinically strategic level of denial), I maintain just enough delusion to get through breakfast.
After all, if this is the “good cancer,” I’d hate to meet the bad one at a cocktail party.
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Hi Hans, thanks for your reply and I do like your humour too. We try to remain as positive as we can be on the rollercoaster we are all taking part in.
I didn’t know about the perineurial invasion. They cannot find any cribriform in my husbands pelvis (but it’s not to say it’s not there). His only metastatis to date was found in his 10th rib on his back (we do know cribriform metastasises at distant locations). The oncologist told us yesterday that she expects it to pop up in more than one location this time.
He currently doesn’t want to take hormone therapy because he only went on it last August as no scan could locate the metastatis but she said sometimes hormones give a ‘flare up’ which is exactly what happened to him.
He had the 3 month injection but felt so ill throughout that he really doesn’t want to go on it again until he has to. She has said she will try him on a new hormone next time which is a daily tablet relugolix when he does need it again. It’s taken him 8 months to recover from the injection and he now has more vigour again and his sex drive has returned too! He had recovered so well post RALP that it was a huge surprise to be told his Gleason had been upgraded to 4+3 and was now the aggressive cribriform.
Can I ask you when you were diagnosed with it too? I know the stats aren’t good for Cribriform and just hope that as our oncologist is quite proactive we can be ‘on it’ so to speak as soon as we find another metastatis. Unfortunately he doesn’t react to the radioactive material in PETCT scans, which didn’t help locate it last year.
He had 3 doses of SABR radiotherapy for his rib which seems to have done the trick there so far, but if it pops up in more than 3 locations together they’ll not be able to do SABR next time, so we’ll just have to wait and see the results of his next batch of scans when his PSA rises to about 10 again which she thinks will be in the next 2 months.
I’m new to this site so haven’t had time to read through everyone’s posts yet, but am pleased to have finally connected with someone else with Cribriform as it helps to chat.
Thanks again 👍