Connect
← Return to Decision time SBRT, IMRT or surgery
Discussion
Decision time SBRT, IMRT or surgery
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 13 hours ago | Replies (32)Comment receiving replies
@brianjarvis I have mainly been looking at side effects, and length of time for treatment due to I am still working full time right now and own the business. The surgery I didn't like due to the side effects and recovery time as well as both of my opinions the first was a practice that has almost NO communication avenue and the Dr was nice and seemingly knowledgable but the practice seems to care more about quantity of patients, the second opinion which was at Duke the surgeon was one of the most arrogant people that I have ever met and seemed as though meeting with me for the second opinion was a waste of his time. The IMRT was just too much time and the distance for me to Duke is about 1 1/2 hours. The SBRT I can handle going to Duke 2-3 days per week for a couple of weeks. I suppose process of elimination should not be the way to make such a decision but that is sort of where I am at.
Replies to "@brianjarvis I have mainly been looking at side effects, and length of time for treatment due..."
Connect
@harvey33 I was retired when I had my treatments. Still, the time to and from treatments only took a couple of hours out of my day. (The drive was only 40 minutes from home.) My treatments were always at 2:00PM or 2:40PM each day, so I was able to work that into my regular day.
When my urologist showed me (using an anatomically-correct model of a pelvis) what went on during a prostatectomy, what recovery would be like, and the possible and likely side- and after-effects, I politely said “no, thank you”.
One thing I found is that when it comes to medicine and treatments is that the patient and doctor have to click. Otherwise, like finding another mechanic or dentist, you just have to look elsewhere.
My decision was based on side-effects & quality of life.
At 65y, With a localized, 7(4+3) and PSA of 7.976, I put together a spreadsheet and listed across all treatment options. Then I listed down all possible & possibilities (%) of side-effects from each type of treatment, and gave each one a score. The one with the lowest total “score” ranked highest. We then took that list, and narrowed it down based on the preventions available related to each individual type of treatment.
I then “scored” the quality of life priorities that came out of my personal introspection, and compared that final score result with the treatment options score result. The score that was closest matching was my 1st choice: Proton ranked 1st —> then IMRT —> then SBRT —> and last was surgery. (I was not a candidate for focal therapy.)
I also considered that should there be a recurrence following primary radiation, that with radiation I would have more salvage options.