Decision to be made on treatment

Welcome to the forum and welcome to the club that no one wants to join. I was a Gleason 8 4+4 type 4 High Risk aggressive when Diagnosed. Your next steps will likely be a PSMA to see if you have spread and an MRI. Once those are completed you will have options. In my case I had no spread and since my Cancer was confined to the Prostate I decided on removal of the Prostate via Robotic surgery. I'm about a month away from my Post Op PSA test to see next steps. I'm certain you will get a lot of responses to your question.

This is a great forum and everyone here has a different perspective. 🙂

Definitely need more information. 3+4 may mean you could go on active surveillance. It could also mean you need to have it treated right away. The answer to that depends on what your biopsy shows. What percentage of cancer was there in the cores that were positive? What percentage of 4 was there in each of the cores.

How many cores were taken and how many had 3+4? Any 3+3? Was there anything else found in the biopsy? Cribriform, Seminal vesicle invasion, EPE or other things.

Posting your biopsy here would really help get you more information it will give you a better clue as to what treatment might be.

@jeffhdgsn
Regretfully welcome to our club.

You are at the very start of your journey. You are going to be hit with some many different points of view, and if you do research a ton of information on prostate cancer. My advise is to remember do what is best for you. If you have experienced urologist and medical experts that you are seeing seek out their opinions and then if you are not sure get second or third opinions. Many times you can just sent your medical records to major medical institutions like Mayo or Cleveland clinic who can do second opinions.

I had the same biopsy Gleason Score you did 3+4=7. Did they give you a low risk, intermediate risk, high risk?

When you are getting more information try to remember there are some very good tests out there that more accurately defince diagnosis. A Gleason Score is subjective of the pathologist or urologist reading it. I suggest and many others will mentioned getting a Decipher test. It is a more precise test not subjective to determine if your cancer is low risk, intermediate, or high risk.

Having a Decipher test will help your medical providers and you decide on your treatments and options. Remember it is your body and your decisions so what another chose to do may not be what is best for you. There are other test called PSMA and bone scans that can also help define is cancer is still within prostate.

Just be prepared to hear a lot of information, terms, different opinions and just tons of information coming at you. If you trust your medical providers then lean on them to guide you and explain. If you are in doubt get second opinions from major medical instutions.

Good luck you have long way to go on what is going to be best for you. Just remember us on MCC are here to give you our experience with prostate cancer and inspiration not medical guidance of what to do or not do. That decision is up to you and your medical providers.