You ask...

"What will it take for doctors to say that you are cured? Or even in remission?"

While there is a school of thought that says advanced PCa may be "cured" in certain situations, the general consensus is no, it can't, currently.

The discussion shifts to managing advanced PCa. That managing includes determining what clinical data constitutes a need to treat. If so with what, for how long, intermittent or continuous, if the former, what's the criteria for coming off treatment...

"Will I be seeing oncologists and having PSAs the rest of my life?"

Not to be a downer, but, probably...

If your treatment is for a defined period then there is decision criteria associated with that - Grade Group, GS, PSA doubling and velocity, number and location of metastases, genomic testing results...

If intermittent then terms like progression free survival and radiographic progression free survival enter the discussion.

How long might the break from intermittent treatment be? Nobody can say, too many variables, baseline T, age, lifestyle, type of treatment - doublet, triplet, MDT only.

I am 12 years in to my membership in this club. Three of those have been actively on treatment.. My breaks from triplet and doublet have been five years and currently at 20 months.

During those breaks I have had labs, jabs and consults every 2-4 months.

I have lived a lot in those 12 years... birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, daughter graduating from high school and college, celebrating World Series, Super Bowls and NCAA basketball championships of my favorite teams, concerts, holidays. Likely you can too.

There are statistics about 5, 10, and 15 year survival with PCa. As with any statistics, caution,, they are population based and may be dated. Kind of like the mileage sticker on a new car...estimated..,your mileage may vary!

And, let us not forget, some 35k die each year of PCa here in the US.

So, yes, you are likely dealing with this the rest of your life. It may be an oxymoron but that's the "good" news...!

Kevin