It's a crap shoot...a roll of the dice. At age 70, I too am glad that I had the RP surgery, but only to a degree, with similar thoughts that I am glad the cancer is out of me. BUT...I am one of the unlucky 10-20% that had "surgical margins", which means I had Extraprostatic Extension (EPE), and my urologist was unable to remove "all" of the cancerous tissue...some remains in my body. My urologist's one hopeful caveat was that "cancer tissue needs blood supply, and I (urologist) removed the blood supply, so 'hopefully' the cells will die. BUT...(he said), these cells can end up in your pelvic floor musculature and adjacent other tissues including lymph nodes." I was angry. I had specifically asked him in my pre surgical conference, if he would be removing my lymph nodes as well? He said "no, there are many studies...one of over 1,800 men...that revealed that just a handful had cancer in the lymph nodes. The conclusion is that we (urologists) don't need to remove the lymph nodes." He NEVER said that no matter what form of prostate cancer you have, it just always seems to eventually "come back." If you are lucky, it comes back after you acquire some other condition that will kill you instead, so you won't die of prostate cancer. It seems that there are a LOT of men who contribute here, who had their surgery and follow up treatments 10-15 years ago, and they are still alive, but...there is a seemingly larger group (at least on this blog), that had their cancer return within 3, 5, or 8 years, and they have had a battle of radiation, ADT therapy, and other interventions all of which have horrific side effects. And then...(flip side)...there are men like my maternal grandfather who lived to 96 years of age "with" prostate cancer, and who died of Alzheimer's, not prostate CA. He had Lupron injections on a scheduled basis for a very long time though. Then there was my father who lived to 99 years 10 months "with" prostate cancer, and died of something else. He was never treated at all for the prostate CA, although he suffered with a very enlarged prostate due to the tumor (PSA "over" 200 ng/ml !!!). And, my maternal uncle who lived to within a month or so of his 87th birthday. He had prostate cancer, AND he had the prostatectomy. He died of a massive cluster stroke. So, the guy who actually had the radical prostatectomy, lived the shortest amount of time, compared to his father and to my father. That is what you call IRONY. I am faced at age 70 with the need to schedule a consult with a Radiation Oncologist who will, OF COURSE, tell me that he feels that I need to have the radiation, despite my first two PSA's (6-months post-op) were < 0.1 ng/ml ("zero") as they should be. The nature of my pT3b cancer is such that my urologist wants to get ahead of the curve knowing that I have a high likelihood of recurrence within the first five years post-op...it could be within this first year, or the second, third, fourth, etc., but it will very likely return. So he feels that the risks and side effects of radiation are worth the risk of their occurrence to get ahead of the cancer returning. And we ALL know that MANY men see their cancer return AFTER radiation. So, those cells have now mutated and likely respond less-well to other follow-up treatments like ADT and drugs. I don't know what to do...roll the dice, wait on radiation until/if my PSA is 0.2 ng/ml or greater, or just do the radiation and hope for the best with negative outcomes and no recurrence for at least 10 years or more. I'd like to see some statistics on the rate and timing of recurrence following radiation therapy.