Surgery V RT and HT question

Hi Gubs, sorry to hear you have prostate cancer. Much depends on your diagnosis details.

What is your Gleason score, is the cancer contained well within the prostate capsule?

Surgery or radiotherapy have very high percentage success rates. Nothing is 100% guaranteed though and it can reappear for some people due to stray cancer cells left behind after treatment.

Thanks for getting back to me. Gleason is 3+4, not told if it was well contained, but a good question for me to ask. But are you saying it can reappear after the prostate has been removed completely, or only reappear after radiotherapy?

Hi Gubs, it can reappear after either treatment. Have a read at my profile if you get a chance. 

Just read the profile chum, you've been through the mill, keep hanging in there.

I finally found my answer here, think its going  to be RT and HT for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGEVAWx2oNs

Thanks, it has been a rollercoaster. The toolkit from prostate cancer UK is also useful in helping you decide. This is where prostate cancer is different from many other cancers in that we are given choices and it is up to us to decide which treatment to go for. Gather as much information as you can. In my area there is a buddying set up where you can talk to men who have been through different treatments, worth asking if there is a similar thing where you live.

All the best to you Gubs. 
PCUK toolkit

Hi Gubs. Sorry to hear your diagnosis.

Prostate cancer is a very personal thing and there isn't a right or wrong choice of treatments if you are offered a choice. I'd second the sending for the toolkit as my husband and I found it invaluable when he was diagnosed. After lots of research and talking to both the surgeons and radiotherapists, hubby decided on the radical prostatectomy as he was told that he could have radiotherapy after surgery, if needed, but couldn't have surgery after radiotherapy, but we know some areas may offer surgery after.

Deciding which route to go down is what very much what you feel us right for you and I wish you with your decision and your journey. 

Hi Gubs .Yes you would think so wouldnt you, but unfortunately as many of us on here know only too well there is absolutely no guarantee that removal of the prostate means removal of all the cancer.Both prostectomy and Radio therapy are very good treatments when it is clear through modern day imaging that the cancer is well contained and low volumn and many ,many men are cured .However there is a cohort of men  and unfortunately I am one of them where even after my prostate was removed cancer remained  in some local lymph nodes and was about to  trot off to other areas before salvage RT therapy and ADT .My PSA is now undetectable  and has been for a year since starting  Hormone therapy, it's  only  3 months since I  finished RT so early days yet but the news is positive . RT would be aimed at the area that the cancer was thought to be in however sometimes cancer cells escape and are not seen by the imaging so the RT misses these areas completely and the cancer can progress sometimes many years later  .You would be well advised to ask a load of questions about both treatments on offer in respect of your particular situation remembering that you can always have RT as a second  line of treatment if prosectomy fails but prostectomy is a much more difficult procedure after RT and not one generally undertaken by most consultants after RT failure .