Prostate cancer

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Does anyone have experience of this?

My dad has just been diagnosed. He's 55 and his PSA is 85 (should be below 4). Waiting to see if / where it has spread but my gut feels it's not going to go be good news.

Desperately hoping it will be (many) years not months.

I'd welcome anyone who has experience of this please!

My dad is 78 and recently diagnosed. He’s not been offered any treatment as extremely slow growing, so will be watch and wait. I think his PSA was similar to your DF. It’s one of the ‘best’ cancers to have and I believe many people die with it rather than from it. Hopefully your dad’s will be a similar story to mine!

@cheezy thank you, that made me feel so relieved. Really hoping it's a similar story. Such a high PSA has terrified me!

A number of family members have had this. Dbro had his removed a few years ago. Treatments improve all the time.

My dad has prostate cancer so I completely understand how you must be feeling right now.

If it hasn't spread then there's every chance they can remove it completely, either through surgery or radiotherapy.

If it has spread then there are some good treatments for keeping it at bay, such as hormone therapy.

Some people have a PSA reading of several hundred and 85 doesn't necessarily mean it's spread.

As pp have said, it's one of the more treatable cancers

My dad had surgery for prostate cancer over 20y ago. His prostate was completely cancerous, but the cancer had not spread beyond it. IIRC he then had radiotherapy, but no chemo. Dad lost some function in that area, but otherwise made a full recovery.

Hope you ultimately have good news.

My dad is still around, still travelling (pre-Covid!), still enjoying good food, good wine, good books, and telling the world how it should be run.

My father had surgery which totally cleared his prostate cancer, no further treatment needed. He had a very new robotic surgery too, minimising surgery side effects.

The Macmillan site is really good for factual info, especially when you know his grade.

Good luck.

Thank you! Keeping everything crossed my feeling of dead is the pessimist in me and his story turns out like all yours!

Not sure on the PSA but my grandad had prostate cancer for over 10 years and died of something completely unrelated, fingers crossed for your dad!

Hi - my dad (now nearly 75) was diagnosed a few years ago and started immediately on hormone treatment and he then had chemotherapy and continues with hormone therapy (blocking testosterone blocks it).

He regularly has blood tests confirming his PSA levels are normal and cheerily tells people he fully expects it will be something else that kills him before the cancer returns and progresses enough to be a threat.

It's terrifying whilst you're waiting. They found some hot spots or some other terrifying term in his bones when he had full proper scans which really scared us all even more as we thought that was fatal/awful etc but a few years on it's all good.

Your dad is quite young so it's slightly different (eg. a slow progressing cancer in a man in his 70's is less worrying than a man in his 50's - the former being likely to outlive it and current treatments with hormones seemingly having a tendency to stop working after many years) so maybe they will treat more radically. On the other hand this was the first time my dad had ever had his psa measured so for all we know he might have had it developing since his 50's. Hope that makes sense.

Take care - scary times but it's good it's been picked up and they have lots they can do.

I remember my dad's consultant telling us "More men die with prostate cancer than from it."

My Dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 PCa in 2001. He passed away in 2019 (aged 91) of something unrelated. My cousin's husband has also had the disease for years - maybe 15? - and he's still the complete pain in the neck he's always been :) Try not to worry too much - I was devastated when Dad got his diagnosis, but if I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have been.

My grandad had it for years and died aged 90 of something else. My dad was diagnosed ( age 65) last year and had a very aggressive prostrate cancer apparently. He had hormone treatment and then brachytherapy and his PSA level is now very low and he will just be monitored now. It's scary I know, I was frightened but as others have said already it is often very treatable. Hugs to you OP and hoping for a good outcome for your Dad.

Thank you everyone. Wishing best of luck to your dads and husbands. Fingers crossed for some good (not that any of it is good) for my DF soon!

I'm the op but for some reason it's saying my user name has been taken.

Does anyone know / remember if a bone scan is standard? Or it because they suspect it's spread.

It’s to check.

@TheHoneyBadger I know, I just wasn't sure if it was offered to everyone or only in cases where the suspect it's spread

Hi, I have experience of this professionally. Standard procedure at diagnosis is bone scan to check if any cancer has spread to the bones, a pelvis mri to gauge the size of the tumour and to check if any disease has spread to the local lymph nodes and a biopsy of the prostate to assess how aggressive the cancer is, known as the gleason score. Depending on the results of all of these your Dad will be offered appropriate treatment, assuming the cancer is within the prostate only then either surgery to remove the prostate or radiotherapy to eradicate it would be the usual course of action. If radiotherapy is recommended then there are various methods of delivery, I can tell you more about this but its probably getting ahead of ourselves at the moment. Let me know if you want more info as you get more details about his diagnosis. Sorry you're facing this. Prostate cancer is more common in older gents, your Dad is fairly young for diagnosis, is there any family history of it? Or of breast/ovarian in female relatives?

[quote ringading22]@TheHoneyBadger I know, I just wasn't sure if it was offered to everyone or only in cases where the suspect it's spread [/quote]
Just to clarify, bone scan is standard for every prostate cancer diagnosis.

@Hohofortherobbers thank you so much for the reply.

No history of it or additional risk factors so it's a huge shock.

His local organs and lymph nodes look clear on the CT but they have still booked a bone scan and biopsy. I'm just very worried it's in his bones.

I know, waiting for results is terrifying. If its any reassurance the PSA, although higher than we'd like, isn't desperately high. When we see PSA at diagnosis in the 100s or 1000s you can guarantee we'll find it's spread outside of the prostate. Its encouraging its not in the local lymph nodes. Have you had the T stage reported to you based on that scan? It's a measurement of how big the tumour is and is between T1 (small, totally contained in the prostate) to T4 (large, breaching through the prostate capsule). What prompted the duagnosus, did your Dad have urinary symptons or was it a random blood test?

@Hohofortherobbers I'm not sure on the T stage, I can ask him.

It was a routine blood test but he says on reflection he does have some symptoms when going to the loo / flow etc. But he though it was just getting older. He's not on a relationship so not sure on some of the other symptoms

OK, if you need more info I'm happy to help. You'll be in a far better position to know what treatment is needed once you have the following info: T stage, gleason score, bone scan result. I'm sorry, its such a worrying time, especially when you're in this waiting period, thinking of you x

@Hohofortherobbers thank you very very much for being so kind and helpful

[quote ringading22]@Hohofortherobbers thank you so much for the reply.

No history of it or additional risk factors so it's a huge shock.

His local organs and lymph nodes look clear on the CT but they have still booked a bone scan and biopsy. I'm just very worried it's in his bones.[/quote]
Yes, we were really worried when my Dad was sent for this but it is standard procedure.

My dad claims the biopsies were the most the painful thing he's ever had and he was worried he was going to squeeze the nurse's hand off. I've had hole punches of my cervix done a few times and that smarts - maybe the rear passage is even more painful or maybe he's being a man about it

Try not to worry - you're really at the stage where they're finding out everything they need to know and then you'll have a clearer picture. Nothing has changed by them asking for further scans or biopsies that's just a part of getting the full diagnostic picture and deciding on treatment plans. My dad has chemo but it sounds like that's rare.