Cytoreductive Prostectomy

[Blair77]

My hubs was diagnosed stage IV at 47. He's never had any treatment/ surgery for prostate cancer before his diagnosis. He still has his prostate and I've been reading about " cytoreductive prostectomy" as being beneficial. Has anyone had one and did it help?

[AlanMeyer]

Even people who have had the surgery may have trouble telling you if it helped. If the PSA went down, is that a help, or does it just mean that some tumors were removed but there are a bunch of others still growing as fast as ever in more dangerous places?

I'm no kind of expert, but I definitely wouldn't do it without getting a second opinion. Removing the prostate is major surgery with very significant side effects. Knowing that it won't cure your husband, but only maybe add to his survival makes me suspicious. If you're talking to a surgeon who makes a profit from surgery, or he cites an article written by surgeons who profit from the procedure, that would also put me on my guard. If possible, I'd seek an opinion from a doctor who doesn't do surgery himself, for example a medical oncologist) or who works on salary (e.g., at an HMO) and has nothing to gain from performing needless surgeries. Don't ask your husband's urologist for a recommendation for who to see for a second opinion. Ideally you want an opinion from someone who doesn't know the urologist and has no good reason to stifle his true opinion.

If I did decide to get the surgery, I wouldn't necessarily get it from the first guy who offered it to me. I'd want the most experienced and caring surgeon I could find.

Best of luck.

Alan

[Hidden in reply to AlanMeyer]

Urologist don't know it all, like you said especially if they're primarily surgeons.which the best ones are because as stated that's how they make the big money.I wasn't a candidate and my urologist told me me he wasn't going to make any money off me when we first met. We couldn't believe that he actually said that to my wife and I.So in time I made it up to him with installing and replacing neauphostmy tubes and stints then making him happy with his final hurrah with me :orchiectomy, he did good on that one and he was happy in the end because I faired well and it all was to save my life.so I'm sill here, but vigilance persists.I thank all that laid there hands on me..we all do what we think is best..

[paulofaus]

I have the same decision to make. I found a good analysis here: cancerforum.org.au/forum/20...

[Scruffybut1 in reply to paulofaus]

Thanks for the reference. Fascinating report.

[Blair77 in reply to paulofaus]

That's the type of reports I've been reading. What cancer center do you go to and have they offered it?

[paulofaus in reply to Blair77]

I go to a large hospital in Perth, where I live. One Urologist has offered, but two others declined (I got three opinions).

[jal1954]

My dr told me that the gland is the cancer's home court, and it grow faster there than anywhere else. I had RP in 2013; at that time it was confined, Now that I have CRPC, I'm glad that the gland is gone.

[Hidden]

I had to google that term. Here's a report that turned up: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/252...

There's an expensive (not covered by insurance in the US) alternative to 'conventional' surgery, called HIFU. It's selling point is that it is considered less invasive with fewer quality of life side effects. It just started becoming available in the US in 2016 but has been in use elsewhere for many years.

[Hidden]

Stage IV is no joke.Stage v is death.Iwas stage IV, now no signs, thank god .so it is possible.But personally I went aggressive.Ididnt have a choice.I wouldn't play around with this thing if I were he..