Can prostate cancer ever go into remission?

Most people who have their prostate cancer caught at an early stage and get proper treatment end up in deep, long-term remission (loosely referred to as "cured").

Sources:

"Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. Prostate cancer is usually found early, and it often grows slowly. Most people with prostate cancer are cured."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/prostate-cancer/symptoms-causes/syc-20353087
"Most prostate cancers diagnosed in the early stages can be cured with treatment."
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/services/prostate-cancer-treatment

@northoftheborder
I know you did not tag me but I concur. I have a friend who worked with me back in 1990s that had RP. It is now 2025 and he is cancer free at least from the tests he takes to determine if he cancer.

The only problem with cancer is you can cure the cancer where it was found but you don't know if elsewhere. I think why so important to have test and take action on determining if you have prostate cancer and catch it at the earliest it can be found.

What concerns me is the radiation affects on healthy tissues and organs especially those who had photon radiation of secondary cancers caused by the radiation treatments. My R/O at Mayo said to me "well you would not have to deal with any secondary cancers caused by the raditaion for about 10 years." That response was when I questioned photon versus proton.

That's an important point. I think the risk of secondary cancers must depend a lot on the way the radiation is delivered (there's no difference in long-term outcomes between photon and proton radiation, last I read; it's just about managing side-effects). Photon radiation via SBRT is much more accurate than older types of radiation therapy, and because the machine moves around, secondary damage is significantly reduced.

My oncologist told me the odds of developing secondary cancers (e.g. bladder) from SBRT are only a couple of points higher than developing it without radiation. So in my case, when my cancer had already spread to the spine and there was a high chance of some local spread adjacent to the prostate, the odds tilted strongly in my favour for radiation. So far, so good.

Can anyone show me what an image of cancer spreading looks like?
As I’ve mention in numerous other posts the strange feedback that I’ve been getting makes me think that my records may have gotten mixed up with another patient
Is it advisable to post my owns an image if I can get it from the VA?

good point. We dont really cure anything in current medical practice. Mostly just treat. Long term remission is a better term.

Watching my Dad with his prostate cancer for 22 years I had somewhat rough idea of what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. That said prostate cancer in my humble opinion seems to be one of the most difficult to understand
Even with all of the new breakthroughs options differ so much it makes it difficult for me to know what to do. At this point based on some basic changes that have occurred I’m still not sure where to go who to listen to and what to actually do.
For now I rather hear it all rather than stick my head in the sand.
So please continue with your stories of your own cancer as well as the stories about someone else’s experience

Has anyone else come up with the deduction that CRISPR will be the final answer once the figure out what needs to be altered?

Darn right. I have BRCA2 And if Crisper could just add a letter to my DNA chain, I would not have BRCA.

For most people that have prostate cancer there are no DNA changes to make unfortunately so crisper won’t really help, yet.

If you look at the issue of prostate cancer in families through generations, but no genetic issues, that’s not gonna last forever. They already know that some combination of genes is probably what’s causing the problem.

Will we live long enough to benefit from that research?

Five years without recurrence may be a cure, If it recurs after that and responds well it may be referred to as in remission.

@olman
I am not sure what image you would want.

On a recent WEBMD there was a special edition on prostate cancer. It showed the Gleason Score images that reflect which Gleason Score was seen in pathology. The difference was in the look of the cells.

Then they went into the PSMA and other type scans how cancer would show up if eastside (Spell). I am not sure that would help just passing along what my experience with this and what I have seen.

There are probably many other posters that have sources or can provide pictures or images that you are asking for than I can.

Here are cancer images at different Gleason scores.