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Salvage surgery or salvage radiation?

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 4 days ago | Replies (44)

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Profile picture for jeff Marchi @jeffmarc

@chippydoo
Salvage Surgery would be done if you started off with radiation. Around 40% of the prostate is still there after Radiation. If you start off with surgery, there’s nothing to salvage with salvage surgery. That’s why you have salvage radiation.

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Replies to "@chippydoo Salvage Surgery would be done if you started off with radiation. Around 40% of the..."

@jeffmarc You're right. My husband had prostate surgery as his first treatment. When the chief urologist presented the option of salvage surgery to remove lymph nodes, I found it was odd. I feel that even with the best surgeons, they still can miss the microscopic cells that may not show up on the scan. We've had this experience from his first surgery, which all tests and scans showed no spread. However, they found 0.1 mm of cancer in one of the seminal vesicles during surgery, and it was confirmed in pathology report. That's why I'm very uneasy when surgery was offered again yesterday. I know very tiny trace of cancer can be missed even on PSMA scan. I don't get the idea of putting my husband through misery twice if the salvage surgery fails, and then he would need radiation.