Salvage surgery or salvage radiation?

@prettypass2000
Definitely would prefer the MRI Elekta machine, more accurate and less chance Of other organs being radiated.

I’ve had SBRT radiation on my spine. Three treatments to remove a metastasis. Had no side effects at all.

SBRT to the prostate is a little different. It can cause proctitis, A burning sensation when you pee and maybe reduced flow. It can also in some cases cause rectum problems like diarrhea or they need to go Frequently. These things are usually temporary and only last a few weeks. My brother had 5 sessions of SBRT to his prostate when he was 77, It was not MRI guided, It did cause some urinary issues, but Flomax was all he needed. He is now 80 and doing fine.

You still need to consider surgery. They can usually remove the lymph nodes that have tumors. It depends on where they’re located, Something you need to speak to a surgeon about. Even if they can’t remove them during surgery, they can use SBRT later to zap them.

You may want to get a Prostox test to see if your husband has a problem with SBRT. For some people that can cause serious problems in the future.

As someone who has BRCA2, I would highly recommend you get genetic testing. My father died of prostate cancer. My mother never had any cancer, but both her sisters had breast cancer, and one of my cousins died of it. My mother’s father also died in his 40s of pancreatic cancer. I got a doubling of the chance of getting prostate cancer from my father and BRCA2 from my mother, so I got it at 62. My brother, who didn’t have BRCA2 got it at 77 due to my father. Getting it so young, makes the chance of having a genetic problem very high. You want to find out now so you can get your children tested?.

One of the other people in this forum @dinu Is in the military in Germany and got prostate cancer at 47. He has the genetic problem of ATM, which Has caused some serious problems, but is the reason he got it so young.

Must admit I’ve never heard of having option one, but it makes sense if the lymph nodes are in the area where they would do salvage radiation. They could use SBRT radiation to zap the lymph nodes but then it might make it impossible to do salvage radiation next. This definitely leaves him open to having salvage radiation in the future.

I had a prostatectomy at 62 and 3 1/2 years later it came back so I had ADT followed by 8+ weeks of salvage radiation. I had no side effects from the salvage radiation until six years later when I started having incontinence issues. That could’ve been due to the surgery or the radiation or both. I’ve had four reoccurrences and had to have a metastasis zapped on my spine three years ago.

I’ve now had prostate cancer for 16 years and have been undetectable for the last 27 months while on Orgovyx and Nubeqa. I’ve been on ADT for eight years because of the BRCA2. If I stop the drugs I’m on my PSA rises very quickly, One of the drawbacks of hereditary issues. These days prostate cancer is more of a chronic disease instead of a fatal disease so good treatment makes a big difference.

Here’s what the Mayo doctor posted on this slideshow.

I got depo-provera Shots every three months and they worked great for me. Didn’t work so great once I had to start onto Zytiga.