Please talk to me abour prostate cancer

[StealthyKissBeartrayal]

Just found out dad has it :( Apparently it is not aggressive and has been caught early (he has been having regular screening since he had raised levels of whatever it is they check for about 4 years ago).
So it's OK isn't it? Options are surgery, radiotherapy or watchful waiting, which I hope isn;t an option they are considering.

My Dad had it 5 years ago. He's still going strong!

He had hormone therapy for a few months, followed by radiotherapy, daily for about 5 weeks.

He's not cured as such but the tumour is inactive & he's monitored regularly.
The radiotherapy was pretty draining for him, but he was 71 at the time & the travel to & from the hospital for a 2 minute radiotherapy session took more out of him than the treatment itself.

The prognosis when caught early is usually very good.

I hope he makes a good recovery.

Thank you, glad your Dad's is being controlled so well
I think logically that it is OK but then I just think my dad & cancer, and can't quite believe it. He spent the day with us as it's my DS's birthday, being fun, happy Grandad, then told me tonight and that it would be all fine and that he didn't want me to worrry.

BILs x 2 both have it. One has had radiotherapy and hormone treatment; the other is "watchful waiting" but both are fit and well, play sports etc and you wouldn't know they have a problem.

stealthy I'm sorry to hear this.
Try not to panic.
Prostate cancer is a strange one as not all patients will need to be treated.
Your father's treatment options will depend on his test results but his oncologists may chose not to do anything. This is because cancer treatment can be aggressive and if the tumour doesn't warrant it (if it is slow growing), it's better to spare the patient from treatment that they don't need. Whatever they decide, they will be keeping a close eye on him.

This isn't my exact area of expertise but I'd recommend you ringing the Cancer Research UK Cancer Information nurses. They really are fantastic and very knowledgable. Their number is 0808 800 4040

thanks all
I can see the benefits of watchful waiting sort of, but he is in his 50s, he has cancer, I just want it gone. Guessing that;s quite common i suppose.

Sorry to hear this, but if his PSA has been slowly climbing over 4 years, then hs is in a v good place to be able to make decisions in an unhurried way.

He has 4 choices - surgery (bigger risk of impotence, but often recommended by urologists in younger men), external beam radiotherapy (but tbh, as it sounds very early, this might not be the best choice unless he can get very high tech radiotherapy which protects all the other bits of him better than conventional sorts), High dose rate brachytherapy (not many UK hospitals offer this, but it is excellent) or seed brachytherapy (one day in hospital, great results).

Just depending on all the factors your dad has (psa level, the biopsy results etc) and what is important to him (for instance, some men are unworried by impotence but would do anything to avoid incontinence) he'll want to balance the benefits of the different treatments.

For a man with early stage cancer like your dad, treated with seed brachytherapy (brachy is my specialist area, so I know the UK stats pretty well), 97% of men will have absolutely no sign of any cancer after 5 years, so it is very, very likely to all be OK

Hope he is cured soonest.
I know diddley about it,except Mum's friend's dh had it a coupleof years back, and was treated with hormones. Given the all clear just before Christmas.

Thank you both. CMOT, especially thank you for mentioning seed brachytherapy (is it pronounced "bracky-therapy"?). Hopefully this will be one of the options he is considering, but I will now check. He is mid-late 50s, so not young as such but not old either!
One day in hospital also sounds fantastic, although tbh I'd shut him in there for 6 months if I thought it would cure him completely.

Just been googling that, and the one thing I noticed is that this isn;t something that's coming up on a lot of NHS sites. Is it new/not NICE approved/whatever? Would he have to go private? Or am I just not looking in the right places :)

Yes that's how you pronounce it afaik

Stealth I am so sorry, you must be very concerned. I can repeat what others have said: Prostate when found early is one of the most curable ones to have, it's the one you want if you had to choose a cancer iyswim!

Once it's spread it's often fatal quite quickly, ie within a year or two, which is awful (poignantly speaking of this today - all thoughts with Rindercella )

but it sounds as though they have done an excellent job of monitoring the PSA levels and so on with your Dad. It sounds like it's manageable, from what you have written. really hope he gets past this very quickly and can return to normal healthy living xx

listen to CMOT, she is v v wise on this

Not new, no - places in the UK have been doing it for at least 11 years. Not every oncology centre do it though.

If you want to PM me, I can tell you which oncology centres do it close to your dad

Another +ve story: my Dad had it (at the age of 80), caught early, moderately aggressive. It was still contained - so they just gave him brachytherapy, which has been totally successful. 2.5 yrs on, his psa is still very low and he's fighting fit, travelling, writing, and generally not realizing he's in his 80s.

My uncle has PC as well - but his wasn't caught early, and has already spread to his bones. That said, it seems to be under control for the time being - over a year since diagnosis, he's on hormone treatment and feeling very well. But 'caught early' is the crucial factor - so your Dad's prognosis sounds much more like my Dad's!

Wishing him well - its a scary time, but the odds are you will all get through it really well

Just read whole thread - as per CMOT: Dad had seed brachytherapy. He did have some unpleasant side effects for a couple of months (urgency with bowels/pee, tiredness) but coped very well indeed. And that was at 80, and he is fine now.

My dad had it a couple of years ago, late 60s. Opted for radiotherapy rather than watchful waiting and made a recovery although is still monitored regulary. Many men past retirement age die with it rather than because of it.

He has been told brachytherapy is unlikely to be an option as his prostate is enlarged, apparently, so the procedure is less likely to be accurate. Is this normal or should he be getting another opinion?

Depends on how big it is - some centres won't implant over 60cc, but to be honest, in good hands it isn't an issue and I've done prostates of 120cc with great results. Some places use a short course of hormone blockers to reduce the size of the prostate before treatment

OTOH, if he is having symptoms from having an enlarged prostate (which is v common with age) like getting up in the night to wee, weeing frequently, finding it hard to start, then surgery might be a good option as he will get relief from these.

As far as I know he's had no symptoms
So do you think he should be getting another opinion? I'd be so annoyed if the hospital simply offer the limited range of their provision/expertise.
Is there any evidence on that - I want to mention it but would like to provide something to back it up?

Thanks for coming back by the way, was hoping you were around :)

Hi Stately, Afraid I have no real advice but only to say my Dad too has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He had the diagnosis in Jauary and we were told it was caught early but was quite aggressive but hadn't spread. He started hormone therapy and will start radiotherapy in May after we all get back from celebrating his birthday in Italy. He is 60 and it has all come as a huge shock....in a bizarre twist my Uncle was also diagnosed in December (its not his brother its my mums!) and he has had surgery and is now having regular PSA checks (so far which have been fine).
It is so hard to get my head round it - to be honest I don't think I have. I just have this assumption that it will all be ok because it HAS to be if you know what I mean? A slightly complicating factor is that my parents live in France so he is being treated in france so I think its a slightly different system - I guess in some ways this makes me feel more removed from it too......I can't bear the thought of anything happening to him so basically I don't go there. When I see him he seems absolutely fine and you would never know he had cancer which just makes the whole thing seem even more surreal.

It depends on who told him this - was it a urologist ? Some have their own preferences for treatment iykwim.

He probably needs to have a think about what is important to him (cure is a given of course) - some men prefer to think about the cancer being gone completely, some are most concerned about impotency, some incontinence.

Then he can ask questions of the radiation oncologist and urologist as to what their results are (this is important - all these things are very dependant on the person doing them and some people will try and tell you other peoples results) for the different treatments, and why they would recommend things for him. And why they wouldn't, he can then ask why they aren't offering him things- is it because they just don't do it personally/at that hospital or do they have a particular reason why not.

State of the art surgery is laproscopic or robot controlled (da Vinci) with nerve sparing btw

Thank you CMOT< I think you have answered another of my questions - about how we get these stats, also inc things like infection rates, readmission rates etc.
I will try tocheck all these things are happening, I am finding it difficult to talk to my parents about, they "don't want me to worry" and I feel like I am pestering them with things they have already considered. Plus the general embarrassment of talking to your dad about impotence and incontinence. But, this is important so I will!

stump, so sorry to hear you are going through this too. Hopefully all the stories on this thread are giving you hope as well. Glad to hear your uncle is OK. I know exactly what you mean about saying things are OK because they have to be. I don't know if I am underreacting or in denial but I almost feel as though my dad has cancer on a technicality - it's not the real, scary cancer that other people have, its slow growing and was only diagnosed through his well man check etc etc. And he keeps telling me he isn't worrying about it - right dad!
When is your Dad's radiotherapy starting? My Dad's birthday is May too! Please let me know how everything goes, if you're happy to.