Surgery or Radiotherapy? Decision made!

From what I have read the effects of pelvic radiotherapy can have the same effect on the immune system as having chemotherapy. If the WBC goes too low then it can be boosted with things like Filgrastim injections which work quite quickly. As far as precautions go just think of COVID. In other words avoid anyone with a bug, wear a mask in crowded places, avoid unpasteurised food, wash hands frequently, avoid cuts and grazes but clean well and cover, tend to eat only cooked food, avoid salad leaf and wash fruit well, make sure that eggs are well cooked. 

Thanks, Alwayshope - I had already seen this interesting paper : hence my keenness to watch things carefully as my levels recover.  If medical intervention is required, I want to be on the front foot.   AW

Well done to you for raising awareness of the issue. Take care.

Thanks.  Bear in mind that, statistically, the levels are low but another research paper examined these statistics against reported events of illness / infection and saw NO increase.  Therefore, this paper concluded that the drops in blood count levels “ were interesting but not clinically significant “

AW

Furthermore, if you think of the many hundreds of thousands of radiotherapy patients, there has been no reported increase in illness.  This would have surely been seen if the low counts were a contributory factor.   AW

The caveat to that is how many people would link a low WBC after treatment to being ill as a result of it vs just thinking it is as a by product of the radiotherapy and not bothering to report it. Very few cases end up in sepsis or grade 3 or 4 events.

Just finished my radiotherapy today. Same diagnosis as you but I pushed for the 5 dose SBRT trial. Over in less than two weeks, just the side effects and HT to endure. No way would I ever have surgery, I had had no good reports on that.

ToFo

I thought I may have been asked to do a PSA test before the meeting, heard nothing, just told next meeting by telephone, and at hospital told no further HT,yet to be confirmed by anybody else.Good Luck.

I’m surprised they didn’t want PSA, but I suppose that your nadir (lowest PSA after RT) will be in 18 months time, so PSA will slowly decrease as the cancer cells die (as they can’t reproduce after being subjected to radiotherapy).  Besides, your PSA is already low due to hormone therapy “starving” the cells of what they need to grow, so it temporarily “masks” the effects of radiotherapy.  Good news that they said no more hormone therapy - they must be confident that the little buggers haven’t escaped to run riot round the rest of your body!  Don’t forget that they will have been studying your scans, and they don’t want to over treat you.  Think of it as a HT holiday whilst you see the real effect of radiotherapy (as your testosterone returns).  Oh, and enjoy your second “teenage “ phase as you hot puberty Mk 2!!    AW

Today’s fun activity: graphs.