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50 and Full of Life. Need advice. TULSA or HIFU or what?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: May 12 8:48am | Replies (67)Comment receiving replies
@wwsmith I've stated this earlier on in one or two of my responses, but according to my biopsy, cancer is present in like all of my core samples, so my entire prostate is filled with cancer. This pretty much rules out all focal point radiation therapy. TULSA would target he entire prostate, which would have worse side effects than RP. Due to my young age, non-focalized EBRT would probably create issues for me over time, (e.g. bladder, rectal, additional cancer, etc.), plus it would limit my future treatment options if whatever may come up. RP is my best option.
Replies to "@wwsmith I've stated this earlier on in one or two of my responses, but according to..."
@cxracer Any primary radiation to the prostate is always done to the whole gland which is what you need when you have wide spread cancer within the prostate. Modern radiation is so precise now that the odds of having long term side effects have gone way down, even for young patients. It would be interesting to hear if the radiation oncologists (RO) from Mayo would agree that RP is best in your case, but maybe you have already explored that. I know that when I was in a similar situation at MD Anderson in Houston, I spoke with surgeon's recommending surgery and RO's saying radiation would work with low odds of long term side effects. Of course, no one knows what would happen for any individual case so all the doctors ultimately just say that the patient has to make the choice.
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@cxracer
Your urologist or oncologist said that having full prostate radiation would have worse side affects than having RP?
Most R/Os will treat entire prostate and in my case did so even when MRI and biopsies show cancer only in one section. Why I asked?
R/O with 20 years of doing proton radiation stated in many many cases we are dealing with PC at the cellular level. There is a high chance of only doing radiation only on the biopsied areas that we would miss another area that has cancer and we missed it. It is also why they do the margins.
I see you posted that only one person reached out to you. I remember reading your post but you were stating having RP. I did not have RP so could not help you with my experience with RP as I don't have any. I stick to posting to others on experience if have directly and can pass on to you directly from personal experience.
Good luck on your decision. Have you considered a second opinion even though it is Mayo? Why do I mentioned this. I am a patient at Mayo. My test were done at Mayo. My PCP at Mayo suggested I get a second opinion on diagnosis and treatments as would help with my decisions having two opinions. I followed my PCP advise and got second opinion from UFHPTI and other than some additional tests and different type radiation treatment was the same.