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← Return to PSA jump 16 to 30 in 6 months. Radiation candidate?
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PSA jump 16 to 30 in 6 months. Radiation candidate?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Nov 24, 2025 | Replies (24)Comment receiving replies
Thanks for your informative reply Jeff. I don't recall seeing anything in my biopsy report about the first of your questions but will check. I had mentioned it before but at my age of 89 I need not worry about lasting decades so will be happy for another few years. Have had the PET scan and luckily there was no metastasis found and the cancer was limited to 3 of 12 biopsy samples from the prostate. I looked into your suggestion of considering Nubeqa and found it was counter indicated for me with my CAD disease and Gleason score of 8. Now I am seriously considering the radiation treatments and not the medical approach unless absolutely necessary.
Art
Replies to "Thanks for your informative reply Jeff. I don't recall seeing anything in my biopsy report about..."
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@augustahuss
Long term radiation is as effective as a Prostatectomy. In your case, SBRT radiation would be pretty straightforward and would leave you with the few long-term issues. My brother had it at 77 and he is now 80 and has no issues at all. That’s pretty common for most people that have SBRT. SBRT radiation involves five sessions, not 20 to 30. It is just as effective and actually more effective because the more intense radiation kills more of the cancer, sooner. You could listen to the latest PCRI conference to find out information about that. A radiation oncologist goes into quite a detail on how much better SBRT radiation is. This is something to discuss with your doctor why he recommends IMRT. I did have almost 40 IMRT sessions for salvage radiation, I had no side effects from it, Some people do have issues because they use more radiation with the 20 to 30 sessions than they do with the almost 40 that I had.
If you do have radiation, you should ask the doctor about having one of these put in to protect your rectum
SpaceOAR, Barrigel, or BioProtect
You mentioned that Nubeqa Could be a problem because of your CAD. I’m not really sure that’s a problem, I have a lot of heart issues and it doesn’t affect me at all. On the other hand, Zytiga gave me a lot of heart issues.
I think it would really give you a lot of information if you were able to attend One of the ancan.org Advanced prostate cancer meetings. They have one every week. There one on Tuesday At 3 PM Pacific time. Check out the website, Sign up and get the newsletter, which includes an incredible amount of information about the latest things going on in prostate cancer treatment. If you get there about five or 10 minutes early, they will talk to you first and give you advice about your case. They’ve been doing it for 15 years and there’s always at least three doctors in the meetings. They could help making your final decision on what to do.