My husband has completed 20 sessions of radiotherapy and zoladex injections once a month alongside. We thought that these would now stop but he has been told he could have th em for 2/3 years!!!! Can anyone throw light on this possibility?
It would help us to help you if you could put your husbands stats into your profile. I was T3A N0 M0, Gleason 9 when diagnosed in 2018. I also had 20 sessions of RT in early 2019 and was on Prostap injections for three years. The length of time on HT largely depends on the aggressiveness of the PCa which is indicated by the Gleason score. The more aggressive the original diagnosis the longer the time on HT.
I hope that helps.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift.
Hello, Seamus has already relied an no doubt a few others will. With Gleason 9 I was told I would be on them for two years and I received injections every three months. I thought two years was the maximum for initial treatment but have recently discovered from some of the sages here that for some it's three years in combination with RT. The reason I have chipped in is that when I was initially informed of.my treatment I felt that there was insufficient information provided about treatment and side effects. I think Seamus has answered you well but maybe you will be able to glean more information on here and go back with questions, one obvious one from me is why he is on monthly as opposed to three monthly. Good luck.
Hello Cumbrialady . In addition to the information Seamus has given there is some debate now on how long it is necessary to stay on the injections. Besides the initial risk factors of your husband's personal diagnosis it will also be determined by such things as how quickly the PSA went down and to what level it goes (it's nadir) and over what time period. Radiotherapy continues working for 18+ months and the hormone therapy helps weaken the cancer so the combined treatment has been shown to give better results for intermediate risk patients e.g. those with a Gleason 7.
Most men are moved on to 3 or 6 monthly hormone injections once it has been determined that they are OK on a particular type of ADT so ask your doctor about this.
Regular blood tests are needed to monitor the PSA as this is the way to check that the radiotherapy is working and that there is no metastatic development. Ideally you are looking for a negligible PSA but this is not always achieved hence the importance of the nadir level. After radiotherapy the PSA should stay around the nadir level but there can be a bounce between 12 and 18 months after radiotherapy. This is nothing to worry about provided it goes down again and stays down. There can also be a slight rise in PSA once he comes off the ADT and the testosterone levels return. The experts will send him for further investigation if the PSA rises to 2 above the nadir or if there are 3 consecutive rises in the PSA over a short period.
At the suggestion of my GP, I started off with two one-month injections to test my tolerance of the drug and then moved on to three-monthly. There is some debate about whether it is three months or 12 weeks but my GP insisted on the 12 week interval.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift.
