Why so few Proton Therapy discussions?

Amen brother!
Unfortunately I said I had stopped drinking wine and weed. But that was incorrect :-). I have not stopped living my life as I have always lived it. I do focus on exercise much more than before and that feels great.

You are right about the life lived vs some quantum parallel universe. The physicists are already giving up on that concept. Onward we go.

I was treated with 23 IMRT radiation sessions plus one high dose brachytherapy. My treatment was at a very large and well respected southeastern center of excellence. When I inquired about a shorter course of Proton treatments vs. 5 weeks of IMRT...my RO said "we can do proton but it is a lot more expensive" with no effectiveness advantages

Proton therapy definitely causes less secondary cancers than other radiation therapies. They prefer to use it in children to avoid secondary cancer risk over their lifetime. Proton therapy machines have been extremely expensive to build or treat patients, which is why it is so much more expensive and less used. They have finally been able to get a proton machine built in one and two rooms, which will greatly reduce the expense. Eventually, it seems proton, will probably be equal in priced to other techniques and will be used much more often.

Now the question is, will you really benefit from proton.

Stanford Edu

In a study of about 145,000 men with prostate cancer, the team found that the rate of developing a later cancer is 0.5% higher for those who received radiation treatment than for those who did not. Among men who received radiation, 3% developed another cancer, while among those who were treated without radiation, 2.5% developed another cancer.
Here is a link to the full study from Stanford
Prostate radiation only slightly increases the risk of developing another cancer, Stanford researchers find
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/070/prostate-radiation-slightly-increases-the-risk-of-developing-ano.html

So it seems the secondary cancer risk is very low so maybe paying the extra for proton doesn’t make sense right now, The question with proton therapy is how long will you live? For somebody in their 60s desiring to live Another 20-40 years, it’s nice not to worry about secondary cancers. For somebody who is 75 the risk of a secondary cancer is very low so the lesser expensive therapies make more sense, or do they.

Always useful to hear your thoughts, Jeff. I don’t consider the .5% significant enough, because statistics with so many variables just aren’t believable to me. I’ll go with they are pretty much the same. Throw in the experience of the physician (laregely unknow) and your guess is as good as mine. Since it hasn’t posted to insurance yet, the price isn’t a factor for me. Should that change dramatically, I’ll have to look at it again

I find no fault in your reasoning. It is spot on. I have some conversations and questions coming up. That could change the trajectory. Thanks so much for taking the time to provide such detailed feedback. Best wishes to all of us!