1. < Prostate Cancer

What are common side effects of salvage radiation therapy?

Posted by rad62 @rad62, Aug 13, 2023

Common side effects 2 week into salvage radiation therapy

After 10 sessions of salvage radiation therapy to whole pelvis I'm experiencing a burning sensation in the rectum when evacuating.
Have many of you experienced side effects during salvage radiation therapy after prostatectomy ?(Not when radiating the prostate itself)

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q95oldies | @q95oldies | Aug 16, 2023
In reply to @web265 "Dr's are all different, and sadly, don't get paid to chat too much. My surgical follow..." + (show)
@web265

Dr's are all different, and sadly, don't get paid to chat too much.

My surgical follow ups are about 3 min, "you're psa looks good, see ya in three months" almost literally.

My RO was awesome, "so what would you like to talk about, he'd sit there and answer questions for an hour if you wanted. After that the nurse would ask if you thought of any other questions while talking to the doc. The experience was so night and day it was wild. On top of that, they are owned by the same hospital group. Just weird.

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Yes, I saw my Oncologist yesterday for a PSA report. Good news, 5.7 to
0.2 something. Anyway, he was much more informative yesterday, nurse too.
I guess all of us get very busy at times. Now, when I told the urologist about the
good PSA, his response..."great". That was it. LOL

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rad62 | @rad62 | Aug 16, 2023

Yes this is my experience to,
I was going to get treatment in a private hospital,
there the urologists and R.O would spend lots of time explaining things and answering questions.
I decided against treatment there as it was too far to travel.
So I'm being treated in the social health care system in Spain and they are under more pressure to treat such a lot of patients I just don't think they have enough time to give us better attention.

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billfarm | @billfarm | Aug 23, 2023

Why is radiation used in stage 4 patients that are currently on orgovyx/zytiga combo with undetectable psa? Won t hormone therapy be needed after radiation anyway?

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1 reply
itterac | @itterac | Aug 24, 2023

I had no such burning. 36 rt after rp

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web265 | @web265 | Aug 25, 2023

I had some burning, wasn't everyday but it was there once in a while. After treatment stopped it went away for me. It took a couple weeks to stop.

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kujhawk1978 | @kujhawk1978 | Aug 27, 2023
In reply to @billfarm "Why is radiation used in stage 4 patients that are currently on orgovyx/zytiga combo with undetectable..." + (show)
@billfarm

Why is radiation used in stage 4 patients that are currently on orgovyx/zytiga combo with undetectable psa? Won t hormone therapy be needed after radiation anyway?

Jump to this post

Here's my layman's understanding, your medical team may be better able to explain it.

Radiosensitizers are chemicals or pharmaceutical agents that can enhance the killing effect on tumor cells by accelerating DNA damage and producing free radicals indirectly.

Don't ask me to explain that, in school, biology was not my thing and medical school was never a part of my career path.

Not all PCa cells will die off when on ADT, if imaging shows where PCa is, my understanding is the radiation can "kill" thus eliminating perhaps some of those cells that survive in a low T environment. My understanding is that's why one starts with ADT and several months after, begins radiation.

Kevin

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2 replies
rad62 | @rad62 | Aug 27, 2023
In reply to @kujhawk1978 "Here's my layman's understanding, your medical team may be better able to explain it. Radiosensitizers are..." + (show)
@kujhawk1978

Here's my layman's understanding, your medical team may be better able to explain it.

Radiosensitizers are chemicals or pharmaceutical agents that can enhance the killing effect on tumor cells by accelerating DNA damage and producing free radicals indirectly.

Don't ask me to explain that, in school, biology was not my thing and medical school was never a part of my career path.

Not all PCa cells will die off when on ADT, if imaging shows where PCa is, my understanding is the radiation can "kill" thus eliminating perhaps some of those cells that survive in a low T environment. My understanding is that's why one starts with ADT and several months after, begins radiation.

Kevin

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My 6 month eligard shot was only given 3 days before my radiotherapy (25 x imrt) began for bcr and no additional meds for lupron flare, they said with my low PSA 0.27 it wasn't necessary.
I'm not so sure, I hope it isn't detrimental to the outcome of the radiation treatment.

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1 reply
kujhawk1978 | @kujhawk1978 | Aug 27, 2023
In reply to @rad62 "My 6 month eligard shot was only given 3 days before my radiotherapy (25 x imrt)..." + (show)
@rad62

My 6 month eligard shot was only given 3 days before my radiotherapy (25 x imrt) began for bcr and no additional meds for lupron flare, they said with my low PSA 0.27 it wasn't necessary.
I'm not so sure, I hope it isn't detrimental to the outcome of the radiation treatment.

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I expect that given the six months of ADT and radiation to a known target, think smart munitions versus dumb ones, you'l be ok.

What you won't know is would it have changed outcomes such as progression free survival, radiographic free survival, overall survival...since it's not a laboratory experiment which you can run again.

In the business world it's called a "sunk" cost, not germaine to the decision at hand. Should you need to do something similar in the future, you can certainly learn from this experience and ask questions of your medical team.

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billfarm | @billfarm | Aug 28, 2023
In reply to @kujhawk1978 "Here's my layman's understanding, your medical team may be better able to explain it. Radiosensitizers are..." + (show)
@kujhawk1978

Here's my layman's understanding, your medical team may be better able to explain it.

Radiosensitizers are chemicals or pharmaceutical agents that can enhance the killing effect on tumor cells by accelerating DNA damage and producing free radicals indirectly.

Don't ask me to explain that, in school, biology was not my thing and medical school was never a part of my career path.

Not all PCa cells will die off when on ADT, if imaging shows where PCa is, my understanding is the radiation can "kill" thus eliminating perhaps some of those cells that survive in a low T environment. My understanding is that's why one starts with ADT and several months after, begins radiation.

Kevin

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Does nuking the pelvic floor do any thing for widely scattered circulating pc cells that haven t yet colonized in a distant location?

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kujhawk1978 | @kujhawk1978 | Aug 28, 2023

My thought is no, what you describe, necessitates systemic therapy...ADT, Chemotherapy...

Radiation is not systemic therapy, it is generally best used on specific known locations based on imaging results.

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