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When to switch doctors? Anyone take this step?

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Aug 22, 2025 | Replies (19)

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Profile picture for jeff Marchi @jeffmarc

Do you live in the United States? The answers are very different for people who do not live here.

A surgeon who does prostatectomies is not the person to guide your future cancer care with a Gleason nine (Or any recent score when you have a recurrence). Your having an appointment with someone else may actually be the right answer. If they are setting you up with an oncologist to handle your treatment from now on, that would be the best thing to do.

Getting a second opinion from another doctor is critical when you are unsure of your treatment. Going to a center of excellence or finding a Genito Urinary Oncologist is extremely important, GU Oncologists are the ones that specializing in prostate cancer, unlike medical oncologist, who work with all different types of cancers. If you’re being set up with a medical oncologist, you may want to find another place For treatment. I’ve had a GU oncologist for eight years, As soon as I went on Lupron I was switched from my urologist/surgeon To the oncologist. She knows so much about prostate cancer, as much as I know, she was able to answer my questions every time I ask about Something I heard that might help my treatment.

You have some serious problems, cribriform Can be very hard to treat and can cause recurrence sooner than one would hope. Definitely find a second opinion you can depend on.

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Replies to "Do you live in the United States? The answers are very different for people who do..."

Helpful - thanks. I live in Arizona. I had a conversation this week with someone I met through the Prostate Cancer Coalition who works in radiation. That office has oncologists so I might see about going there. The issues I saw in the post-op notes, some of which I mentioned in the first post, make me feel more urgent than the urologist/surgeon is acting. I'm worried about aggressive growth - I was Gleason 4+3 at the biopsy on 7/25/24 and 4+5 at surgery on 11/11/24. I understand that a PSA of 0.02 is lower than what would normally cause concern, but for it to be detectable at all just 7 months after surgery also concerns me. I thought I had an easier cancer - my parents both died from pancreatic - but apparently that was unwarranted optimism.