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Is there ever a cure for stage 4?

Posted by ruste @ruste, Aug 4 8:31am

Has anyone ever been "cured" from a stage 4, gleason 9, castration sensitive, metastatic prostate cancer? I'm cruising along with ADT (Lupron and Xtandi) that is keeping my PSA in check, but I often wonder if there is more that can be done. My oncologist seems to imply that this treatment if for life or until it becomes castration resistant.

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jeff Marchi | @jeffmarc | Aug 5 6:50pm
In reply to @kenshabby "Technically I’m not sure that I’m castrate resistant. The ominous fact is that my PSA went..." + (show)
Profile picture for kenshabby @kenshabby

Technically I’m not sure that I’m castrate resistant.

The ominous fact is that my PSA went from undetectable to 0.05 while I was on a full course of DEGARELIX.

My next reading of 0.09 occurred 46 days after my last dose of DEGARELIX. The half-life of that drug is 28 days so more than half of the drug was out of my system by the day of that PSA reading.

I may be splitting hairs, but because my oncologist didn’t say maybe we should go two more months two more doses because that move from undetectable to 0.05 hints a at castrate resistance, but does not prove it.

My total time on degarelix has been 24 months, but in two very distinct one year periods. My first stint also included about six months of Lupron instead.

Also, my last stint that just ended included Diarlutimude, up until early June. So I’d be a little surprised to find that I was castrate resistant after only 24 elapsed months total and with the last six months with no prostate.

If you detect some grasping for straws, here you are correct

* I’m getting a little exasperated by the iPhone, not understanding the names of any prostate cancer drugs. So please forgive all caps and egregious misspellings of various prostate cancer drugs.

My phone keeps interpreting “DEGARELIX” as “the garlic”, but rest assured, I am not yet trying any crockpot home remedies.

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Call it, Firmagon, That way, you probably won’t have any spellcheck problems and it’s the same drug.

Yeah, I see that your PSA is a little bit too low to consider castrate resistance yet. And you don’t become castrate resistant if you do not stay on ADT. Quitting the drugs and having your PSA rise, means that you could have micro metastasis that have not been treated, Too small to see.

As you probably know, If you drop the drugs and your PSA continues to rise at a significant rate (doubling time less than around 6 months) They are going to want to put you back on drugs. ADT and an ARSI.

Then again you have a choice of letting it sit around and get bigger so that it could be found on a PSMA pet scan, So you can have it zapped.

At this point, it’s a waiting game, You need to see how quickly your PSA is actually rising.

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Profile picture for kujhawk1978
kujhawk1978 | @kujhawk1978 | Aug 6 7:30am

No,,,but, 11+ years later, here I am.

Things have changed since my diagnosis.

Perhaps our children will see that change much like we have seen change from what our parents' experiences were, talk with an older radiology nurse about lead blocks...
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New Prostate Cancer Treatments Offer Hope for Advanced Cases (New-Prostate-Cancer-Treatments-Offer-Hope-for-Advanced-Cases.pdf)

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