Early diagnosis

Hi silverfox I noticed that nobody had responded so my reply will bump you up to the top.  I didn’t have the choice of an operation, but my thought before I knew anything about PCa would have been to have the op and to get rid of it.  The snag is, that the op doesn’t always get everything out so the backup is then RT.  
Having had lots of RT myself I think I would now be more in favour of going straight for that rather than an op.

The problem is none of us start at the same place, respond in the same way to treatment or have the same lifestyles, so the decision is very personal.  You are doing the right thing trying to weigh up the options with pros and cons.  Brian (Millibob ) or someone will be along to give you more info.

Thanks David.

Hi Silverfox,

I was given the choice of surgery or HT/RT & chose the latter treatment & have no regrets.

It's a very personal choice and affects both you and a partner in different ways although in the end it's down to your choice.  Like you, I drew up a list of the pros & cons for both treatments and both have their own side effects which will need to be dealt with.  

At the time I was a ghost on this site reading the posts & my personal reasons for choosing HT/RT mainly came down to a few simple things: 1. I'm a wimp so having an operation & a stay in hospital was not something I would choose unless it gave a much better outcome, 2. I was only going to have 9 months HT so I wouldn't have to live with any side effects from that side for too long, 3. To me, RT offered the simplest pain free option (wimp again) & no catheter.

As mentioned before, it comes down to what's important to you.

Best Wishes

Brian

Hello silverfox 

I was going to give you a longer reply, but I have been travelling, just arrived on holiday and as you have met the Oncologist today I thought I would ask what the outcome of that meeting was and do you still have any questions

Best wishes - Brian.

Thank you Brian. The meeting went well and all my questions today were well answered.

I have considered the options presented and am currently favouring Radiotherapy with Hormone treatment. 

If I have any further questions, I may reach out to you if that's okay.

Enjoy your holiday.

Keith

Hello Keith (silverfox )

Thank you for your reply. I had no choice in the matter and it was HT/RT for me and in almost 4 years I have overcome all the side effects and not lost a days work. 

Happy to answer any questions-you can read my full journey by clicking on my name or avatar.

Best wishes - Brian.

Hi silverfish.

Only a partial answer because I was basically told EBRT only option (age and COPD) back in 2021, but I would have chosen that plus HT anyway. Failure rate pretty much the same and, for me at least, side effects "better".

My curative attempt failed in only 3- 4 years compared with more usual 5 and i am now palliative only on double HT treatment. Would surgery have given longer time to recurrence? Very possibly. Do I wish I'd argued more strongly for surgery? No, I don't think so. Still no really unacceptable symptoms nor side effects so I've got my 5 years. 

It's a hard call. Research what you can. Ask as much as you want, although some consultants don't like it. Most important once you've decided put "what if" behind you.

Good luck, Dave 

Thank you Dave.

Best wishes to you.

Keith

Hello silverfox . As I’m sure you are finding out this is a very personal decision which many men have to work through. I started off leaning towards surgery but, as with Brian ( Millibob ) I ended up only having the RT/HT option. That I found to be relatively simple and straightforward, although it did involve nearly 100 train journeys (our choice)! You may have seen the NICE guidelines for prostate cancer which have the same outcomes for both options, albeit different side-effects, when localised.

www.nice.org.uk/.../Recommendations

Although it was 15 years ago and things have changed since then, my brother had the op. He later found his PSA was rising again and had to have salvage RT. He is still with us and still is enjoying life with undetectable PSA.

Good luck coming to your own decision. 

Thank you for your reply.