Early Stage Prostate Cancer

Welcome to the community ThomasA. Active surveillance sounds like a sensible suggestion but regular scanning will be needed to ensure the cancer is still contained within the prostate. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?

I will be 70 on the 11th October

Thank you for your welcome to the community and your opinion on active surveillance.

I opted for active monitoring after being diagnosed with intermediate prostrate cancer over 2 years ago. I have just turned 53 and to be honest this has not been an easy process. I have found if very stressful waiting for results and hoping for no change. The options for treatment all have different side effects and some can be life changing, but I am beginning to think that having treatment and being cancer free may outweigh possible side effects of any treatment. 

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much for your opinion, it's greatly appreciated. I'm having similar thoughts, do I want to wait and nothing may ever change or do I want to get rid of it? Big decisions. By the way did your review panel recommend active surveillance or did you opt for it yourself? Many thanks Thomas A.

I was told of all my options and decided on active monitoring myself after much thought. I found talking to my workmates a big help. Being in a big factory I did have a varied amount of opinions from many men. I am living a relatively normal life at the moment but there is this constant looming feeling following me around from being on monitoring for a cancer I could have removed. Ups and downs involved in all decisions. 

Hope this helps, I find it helps to get lots of other opinions even from people who are not cancer sufferers as well as others that have been through it. 

Thank you so much for your reply. I am seeing both the external beam radiation consultant and brachytherapy consultant in the next few weeks and hopefully this will help in my decision making. I would really like to know what % of people with the type of low grade low risk tumour I have decide to have no treatment and the cancer does not change over time. I am aware of the over treatment issue for prostate cancer as well. Thank you again ThomasA

I was on AS for 4 years, it wasn't a problem but u can start worrying about the next set of results.

Looking back, because the RT was so easy with no lasting side effects I could of considered having treatment earlier but its always ok in hindsight.

Looking at your stats, which r very low I probably would consider AS at least for a while, see how it goes.

best wishes

Steve

Thank you Steve. Yes my stats are very low and had my PSA not risen from 3.5 to 3.72 in 3 months I would not have had an MRI scan followed by biopsies. AS is a very attractive option and only time would tell if it's the wrong one. I do have a very good level of fitness, a good diet and I'm very active so these are all positives too in the event of opting for any treatments. Did your cancer progress during AS or did you decide you just couldn't cope waiting on the next set of results during AS? How are you now post RT? ThomasA

the reason I went for treatment was because the tumour had grown in size, 3mm to 13mm in 4 years and was near the capsule edge. prob should have gone for treatment after 3 years.

Post RT everything ok, treatment in March 2017 and latest psa in March 2021 was still in decline albeit slowly.

could be worth asking for a copy of the Mri report to establish tumour size and exact location within gland,