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@brianjarvis

That was an interesting first post-surgery discussion. Must’ve been a real shocker!

Leaving prostate tissue behind - healthy or cancerous - sometimes (unfortunately) happens. Dr. Kwon talks about this in one of his presentations about prostate recurrence: https://youtu.be/Q2joD360_pI

Genetic (germline) propensity of prostate cancer is said to occur in up to 15% of cases. However, there are also somatic propensities (e.g., mutated variants) caused by cell mutations or environmental factors. Other tests look at other genes, proteins, and tumor markers in prostate cancer. (This is not the same as genetic testing.). There may be some familial environmental similarities that are not known. Did your doctors investigate those?

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Replies to "That was an interesting first post-surgery discussion. Must’ve been a real shocker! Leaving prostate tissue behind..."

Thanks for the comments. I was referred to Genetic Screening and Counseling (the later if necessary). A week or so after a buccal swab process, I was contacted and also sent an e-mail with a report that stated "Negative" for tumor genetic markers. I was a clinical lab director for most of my career. I was pleasantly and surprisingly shocked at how many genetic tumor markers are tested for. Without counting, it look to approach 100 or more. I will ask in my 3-month follow up at the end of July, if there is anything more specific that they can test for, and/or if any in-common environmental factors could be at play. Having been that clinical lab director, I had/have never heard of any environmental factors being contributory to prostate cancer. I have always known that there "can be" a familial genetic propensity for it )which I thought I had), but that most men - like me - fell into the classic "one in five men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime" category. Despite my father having prostate cancer, but living to age 99 years 10 months without treatment or prostatectomy; or my maternal grandfather having prostate cancer without prostatectomy for over 20 years and dying of Alzheimer's; and a maternal uncle having prostate cancer with prostatectomy, but dying of a massive stroke at age 86, there was no genetic link to my father's side of the family or my mother's side of the family. I just fell in that "one in five men will get prostate cancer" category.