"Men with the deadliest form of prostate cancer are being offered surgery on the NHS for the first time in a trial aiming to save lives, the Standard can reveal.
"London surgeons are leading the UK’s participation in an international project that is investigating whether removing the prostate can slow or even stop the spread of cancer in the bones.
"Under NHS rules, men whose cancer is found to have spread, or metastasised, are not offered surgery as the disease is deemed too advanced. Instead they receive hormone treatment followed by chemotherapy and possibly immunotherapy. Survival does not usually extend beyond five years.
"Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and is the second most deadly after lung cancer — causing 11,300 male deaths a year in Britain.
"The trial is being led by Prasanna Sooriakumaran, a consultant urological surgeon at UCLH at Westmoreland Street. He believes it has the potential to benefit a “huge number”.
"A total of 21 men have taken part in the trial to date — 17 at UCLH in Westmoreland Street, three in the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford and one in Oxford. The trial is separate to the 500 robot-assisted prostate removal operations this year at UCLH.
"The trial, which will also make use of UCLH’s two £1 million robots, uses scans to differentiate between men whose cancer has spread in up to three areas — those most likely to benefit — and those who are more widely affected.
"Mr Sooriakumaran, known as PS, said: “It’s like the prostate being the mothership and the secondary areas in the bones being the satellites.
"The theory is that if you remove the mothership it stops the satellites from progressing. In some cases it will not only prolong survival, we are hoping it will cure the man. This is giving hope to men who didn’t have hope.”
"Early indications are positive, with PSA tests on the first patients indicating the extent of their cancer has fallen after surgery. The aim is to prove that removing the prostate can improve survival rates by 30 per cent.
"The Royal Marsden and Guy’s have just joined the trial, with other hospitals in England, Germany, Sweden and Austria also taking part. A total of 418 volunteers are being sought."
There is more and more evidence showing that removing the prostate (primary cancer generator) even when the cancer has spread offers longer survival. Last year I had to argue with my surgeon to operate even though the cancer spread to the pelvic area. Turned out I have a rare form (Ductal) that does not respond that will to radiation or chemo. Good thing I won the argument.
With a New Year round the corner, I am so happy with this news after having removed my prostate by surgery whilst the tumor was within the capsule with no visible other involvements. According to this Mother-ship / Satellite theory even the possibility of having a recurrence risk due to micrometastasis should be very remote in my case. Further I must be even better off since my RP was followed by IMRT plus 2 years ADT2 : Aggressive treatment for GS9 PCa. My PSA at Dx was 7.90 ng/ml and remaining at 0.008ng/ml for nearly 3 years now. Thanks are due to Dr.Sooriakumaran as well as our friend Patrick for breaking this good news.
Hello Patrick, Dan59, BigBassMan, et all. To the latter first. What a fine bio you just allowed all of us to read! I especially liked not having to sign in so I can read you straight up on this iPad Pro and not type at a 90 degree angle. Darryl, can you adjust that, pretty please? Btw, I did subscribe to the MaleCare site on YouTube as requested, but there isn’t a whole lot there yet.
Sorry to be flip, but, Patrick, maybe we will make it to Oxford after all. I was in favor of removing the mothership about a year and a half ago. (We could even stay in Britain for the birth of the 3rd child and the wedding. We’re watching the second season of “The Crown”, last night episode 5 about the Queen’s speech comeuppance which increased my sympathy for her.)
Based on your last, probably by now not the last, post, I’ve decided to ask our urologist/robotic surgeon for prostate removal. It certainly beats a non-MRI TRUS which may have caused Les’s bilateral lymphedema which, in turn, pretty much eliminated the possibility of pelvic radiation. I doubt that my husband will agree to the surgery as Leswell is feeling too well at the moment in spite of his 21 PSA which is likely far lower now on that he’s on some sort of CAB.
BigBassMan, Les takes Metformin as do you, only one 500 Mg Tab, but we plan to request two when next we are blessed with an appointment. He also takes 10,000 IU of D3 and one Super K from LEF (half price right now which is cheaper than Amazon, so we bought enough of each to last a year. We trust they’ll still be efficacious in a year and that he will still be alive.)
BBM, (how do you like MY abb, Dan?) Les is also on CAB; his is the 5-combo same as Nalakrats’. Aren’t you going to take Biosphere DIMM? Getting too long as usual. I will post what I just typed for Les to remember why he is taking what he’s taking because I want to also post a photo of my runner as Dan did of his ski jumping. This time I’ll try it without using Google Drive.
Merry Christmas everybody. It’s my 78th birthday Christmas Day. Not ha. I should include a photo of my 4th birthday at which time I was already taking piano lessons from Ms. Lindsay in Waukegan who taught at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. She had a child seat and two grand pianos and taught me to “hold an orange” and keep my elbows relaxed. I have a picture of that, too. Mrs. S
P.S. Family from KS are coming to take us to lunch on the 22nd. Maybe we should consider treatment there based on comments by Don1167. “I have sought all my treatment locally, Kansas City, and even though it is not a big name center, I trust my Docs implicitly and they have offered me the best treatment available for my situation. Had a PET scan in Decatur, Illinois, not Mayo, the other choice, I got the best service and the exact scan that I needed and I did not have to wait months for Mayo. My Dr’s are all PC specialists and knew what they were doing, and had done research through a University Medical Center. Getting local treatment is good, it’s having no insurance and no money is what leads to problems.” Drs who are all PC specialists sounds good to me. By the way, Don, my former address was 1157. I won’t forget you. I’ll move over to Posts later today. Les is putting on the coffee.
I had my prostate removed when I was first diagnosed in 2006. Was in remission for 6 years. In 2012 it came back so used radiation on tumor where prostate was. After bone scan it was in my bones in stage 4. PSA was 7. I did hormone treatments for about 2 years then did immuno therapy. PSA dropped to 2 and stayed there. Kept doing hormone therphy for another year. PSA went up to 7 and found another tumor on my thigh bone. Radiation and a different hormone therapy brought PSA back to 1. Was stable for a almost a year then PSA jumped 17. Doing chemo and hormone last 6 months but PSA is back to 1. So all I can say is you do what ever it takes. I'm coming up on 12 years now. Over 5 in stage 4. So do not let stats on survival rates get stuck in your head. There is new immuno therphy here in the states going into trials. It is being used in Mexico with pretty good results. I'm trying to get into the trials.
I try to keep it simple so it is easy to understand. I have a long story but I try to keep it simple. Prostate cancer is manageable or at least it has been for me. There are only a few different treatments in the book for me now but there are many new treatments coming. I just lost my dad to prostate cancer after his 18 year battle.
I couldn't agree more with this doctor, who has the sense to push back against the accepted standards of treatment, which really amounts to precious little treatment.
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5-year survival rate?
FYI: from the VA research information on Veterans 
