Surgery or Radiotherapy? Decision made!

Fingers crossed  for your results. 

Hi Alpine Wanderer

Fingers crossed for you 

Peter

Hello Alpine Wanderer 

All good and nothing to worry about. Life is back to normal you are in a very good place.

Thanks for sharing your journey and all the help around the group - it's very much appreciated.

Time for a small celebration for you and Mrs AW  .

Kind Regards - Brian

I’m not as researched as you my friend, but I personally think, in these circumstances, that your PSA results, while important, are unlikely to be very accurate within the first year. Things need to settle down. PSA bounce is likely and expected. I read it may be due to radiation inflammation, ceasing HT and many other factors. Nothing to worry about

Indeed.  I found this on the respected German “prostatazentrum” site:  PSA bounce after brachytherapy does not indicate renewed tumour growth in the prostate (local recurrence) in most cases, and is not due to a poor brachytherapy outcome. In fact, numerous studies have shown that patients with a PSA bounce were even less likely to develop PSA recurrence than patients without a PSA bounce and thus had a very good prognosis for disease. For example, a recent study from Switzerland in 2015 showed that the risk of biochemical recurrence is reduced by more than 75 percent in patients with a PSA bounce.  Let’s hope my pathway follows the same trajectory!   AW

Hi AW,

As all said we hope your PSA increase will drop back in the next blood test. From conversations with the oncologist team I learnt that only after 3 consecutive increases the treatment change. Can I just add that even if they put you back on HT this is not the end of the world and life and almost full activities are possible and carry on. I know, no T, no sex but as Millbob Brian once said, we found other ways to amuse ourselves. ( not sure if this is a direct quote but something like this).

I wish it will not come to it and I know that it is worrying times.

Lots of love

Dafna

Hello AW,

Looks like things are ticking along nicely & the next test results will hopefully show everything moving in the right direction.  In the mean time, your very healthy & active lifestyle is no doubt playing an important role as well.  Balls of steel sounds a bit painful (can you get an ointment for that?) but we all know what you mean.

Keep those scenic shots from your wanderings going as they brighten the dull wet days. Hope the appointment on the 3rd confirms everything is tickety boo.

Best Wishes

Brian

Buzzers said:

Keep those scenic shots from your wanderings going

Taken last week. 

Thanks @buzzers.    AW

It’s been a couple of months since I posted on my thread.  I’m in a reflective mood.

Two years to the day I was very worried.  I had my LDR brachytherapy operation scheduled for the following day at Addenbrookes hospital.  I felt like I was “about to take a wrecking ball” to my health, in the pursuit of eliminating a couple of small lesions in my little walnut sized prostate gland that were found by chance on a routine blood test and completely asymptomatic. A few months previously I wouldn’t have even known where the gland was in my body.

As this thread of my story profile has been viewed over 43,000 times, a lot of you will know that it was followed up with 23 x 2Gy fractions of radiotherapy (=46 Gy) to the whole pelvic area up to L5 lumbar region.  (For a more concise history, my bio has the main milestones by date).  This treatment is known as “brachytherapy boost”.

The reasoning for this line of attack was that I had Gleason 4-3 with cribriform architecture, which has a higher possibility of shedding microscopic groups of cancer cells into the bloodstream (where is makes a beeline for the very inviting “fertile soil like” cell structures on the insides of bones) or into the lymph system(where it can lodge in lymph nodes to continue to grow).

Now this all sounds very frightening, until you look at the fact that, according to a surgeon that I spoke to, cribriform is evident in 70% of removed prostate glands.  However, I felt that strong action was required.  To my immense relief, my MDT agreed.

So, I started my 18 months of hormone therapy early Oct 2023, to shrink and weaken the cancer cells.  Then, the LDR brachytherapy operation was to precisely target the cancer cells in the gland (via an excellent PIRADS 5 view from the MRI, which enabled precise targeting for biopsy and visually for mapping where extra seeds were to be planted right alongside the lesions).  Then the follow up 23 sessions of EBRT (Jan-Feb 2024) to blast a “nuclear winter” of radiation through the entire pelvic region, to kill any possible stray cells (hoping that none managed to travel further away via blood or lymph systems).

So, here I am, two years later to the day.  I currently have no side effects.  My testosterone & libido has been fully restored (woohoo) - it took 10 months to come back after my final jab (although 3 of those were still hormone suppression from that final jab).

Why am I repeating all this here?  Well, as we run up to Christmas, I remember just how fraught that period was. I want to let members on here know that the fear and uncertainty during the early stages of diagnosis and their first attack against prostate cancer will pass.

Of course, I will be anxious at my next and subsequent PSA tests, but I remain optimistic for a good chance of cure.   Bless our NHS.     AW