I am not a fan of ADT vacations, (IntermittentADT). My problem is, are you giving a new line of prostate cancer cells a chance to find a work-around to the drug.
My outlook from having taken a long line of ADT drugs is take them one at time and stay with a drug for all it is worth.
a "vacation" as some doctors and patients call then are "intermittent androgen deprivation treatments". Meaning the doctors stops treatment intermittently, for a few months for instants.
I assumed this is what you meant by a vacation. Or where you referring to traveling to somewhere far from home?
Interesting. So you achieve some sort of mini vacation from ADT by getting a three month injection every five months. Meaning it wanes during the two extra months. Did I understand you correctly?This would be the first I've heard of this approach. I must have misunderstood.
I was having fun with my ONCO ....and we said why not try EADT..extended time span instead of IADT...For a year we did 4 months and now 5 months lapse.....If does not work...switch backBut in remission the patient has to have supplementary therapy .... The Key to stay in remission.... Chemical docs ...just say good bye till recurrence...
1. Nutrition....avoiding fake diet gurus not easily
2.exercise...a must for 1H30 or more just walking uphills ...a sort of aerobic in forest
3.Intermittent Fasting...14 to 16 hrs ...may be coffee, MCT C8-C10 one spoon to go keto
4. And Mindfulness...the key to do all these things ...look at the body and feel it
5 Supplements a must as all diet is processed and does not have essential minerals due to industrial farming....
All this is highly personal adapted therapy as it will vary from one person to other....
I took an ADT 'vacation' after completing my primary treatment AND having an undetectable PSA reading for about 1 year.
I wanted to determine what my actual / current condition and state of my health was.
Assuming you are / were castrate sensitive and all scans are clear, it makes perfect sense to get off ADT and really find out if you need further treatment.
It is a LOW risk move to try to get some significant answers.
Glad to hear your policy of taking one drug at a time until it becomes ineffective. I have noticed many times on here that some guys seem to be taking a multitude of drugs. That makes me feel a little vulnerable as all I am on is my 3 monthly Zoladex. I have been on it approaching 3 years now and my PSA has crept up slightly to 0.25. My onco seems quite happy with this and I trust him. I have always thought that throwing everything at the cancer in the early stages leaves you very little to fall back on once the tumours start to grow again.
Hi. To confirm though, it looks like after reading your profile you had x6 rounds of Doxetaxel chemotherapy straight off. It is great that you have had such a good response and long may it continue. However, anyone reading your post may just opt to take ADT only, which is not the usual standard of care anymore. Apologies if I have misunderstood.
Hi lcfcpoloI apologise for any confusion. I should have mentioned having 6 cycles of docetaxel first since I was referring to all the drugs/treatments than come afterwards. I would hope that nobody would take my comments as a recommendation though.
Va ver evolves to find resistance to a drug while you are on it, not off of it. That is why continuous ADT always leads to castrate resistance, sooner or later, with a average of about two years. Though there are exceptions such as yourself.
Magnus is a long term PC survivor who has his own perspective based on personal experience. Not all of his preferences are applicable to others. But we appreciate his presence and contributions, with this in mind.
Well said about Casodex. I mean Magnus.Seriously though it is great to have him here with us. Reminds us of possibility of long survival. Good for him and may his longevity continue.
You are correct, we are all different and respond differently to treatments. My experience is that using one treatment at a time has provided me with a longer survival time.
One thing that we all don't want to acknowledge is that the medical profession experiments with treatments. Combining some or trying intermittent use, etc.
I recall when I was being treated years ago, what was being done to me at one hospital, was different than treatment at other hospital, i.e combining treatments. Both were nationally known hospitals.
Indeed Magnus, one of the most difficult areas of treatment decisions is whether or not to combine or to sequence treatments. The clinical trials seems to point both directions in various cohorts. Taking both standard ADT along with an androgen receptor drug has demonstrated improved survival in metastatic PC. On the other hand, sequencing advanced therapies (such as abiraterone then docetaxel then enzalutamide) with concurrent ADT has also shown to be of benefit for overall survival. For me, this is unclear how to sort out and probably needs to be personalized depending on aggressiveness and stage of disease. You
BTW, I too have had great success with casodex as an alternative to standard ADT. It was effective and tolerated well for nearly five years for me before it failed. Best regards, Paul
I'm glad you got so much out of casodex. I hope all your treatments work as well.
Best
Magnus
Seems the Kwon M.O. is to call spots like that metastatic whether they meet all the definitions or not and zap them anyway and they go away after two years of ADT. Go to 3:26 in the video. It seems like a good idea to me. Hopefully for many years if not the rest of your life. That would be great.
My question is-this- You treated PSA by zapping your pelvic metastases. So how will you judge if your cancer is progressing? You can't use PSA anymore. The only way to judge is to have annual PET scans, and even those do not tell you what is going on on the micrometastatic level.
Metastases don't produce serum PSA until they grow to a certain size. There are already thousands of metastases that don't emit PSA and are undetectable.
Interesting... That means PC cells may develop without any psa increase ?What about thinking that it is gone if no psa surge ?
Any other simple markers...CTC... or inflammation standard markers ?
I will thusgo for holistic therapy...nutrition, exercise,intermittent fasting, mindfulness, supplements and enjoy living as it is....que sera sera .......
If the immune system is healthy, micrometastatic guys will be kept sleepy...
Seems like that Kwon talk he said about 20%?40% ?? I forget the figure; of PCa cells turn into non-PSA expressive cells as a result of the systemic treatments. Which is a huge double edged sword. So they can’t be monitored by PSA and presumably more difficult to monitor with scans. But I don’t know if everyone agrees with that statement.
Yes - the danger is being lulled into complacency by undetectable PSA. We don't have any good biomarkers yet, although CTC may be useful - we just don't know how to use it yet if it is useful.
You have much more confidence in the immune system than I do. I hope you're right.
According to your reply, am I wasting my time getting PSAs after my PCa metastisized to my sacral lymph nodes? I did have the identified (via Ga-68 scan) nodes removed four years ago; however, my PSA began rising again at which time I started using the tE2 gel. My PSAs for the last three years have been less than 0.01. Now you have me somewhat confused?
I doubt it accomplishes anything to have individual LNs removed - lymph is a fluid and cancer cells move through it, albeit slowly. If it's in one pelvic LN, it's probably in a lot more, undetectably. You've tampered with PSA as a biomarker of progression by eliminating the biggest sources of serum PSA. So you have to use imaging instead.
I went that route after my RP. Some lymph nodes were spotted in a G 68 scan and I had them surgically removed. In retrospect I maybe should have opted for radiation. It turned out that a few months later my PSA was on the rise again. Now I am on Lupron and abiraterone and undetectable for the last eight months. Good luck!
Bean, Your journey with PCa is very close to what I have been through. Gleason 9, RP at 61, BCR a few years later, Ga-68 PSMA scan in Melbourne, AU for $600 since it was not yet approved in The States, 5 sacral LNs identified, 8 removed via surgery at UCI, PSA declined for awhile but started rising again, refused Lupron and started applying tE2 gel, recent PSA was 0.003; however, according to what TA is now saying my cancer may be progressing since PSAs are only partial indicators of what is going on. And I 'thought' that I was doing great!
This is shocking information, if not devastating! Not one of my four doctors that I forward my blood test results have ever mentioned this. Their normal reply is, "You're doing great!" I wonder how many other people on this forum are aware of this? Getting scans here in Thailand without insurance is going to be a bitch since Medicare pays for nothing outside of The States.
That's what Kwon says in the video. Every six months a PET. and the PET results demonstrate cancer 7 years ahead of traditional imaging. Whether that is true or not, I don't know
If there is progression, even in a micro level, and the patient is on ADT, would that not be a resistant strain? Is it correct that when the progressing metastices reach a certain size they would begin to express PMA unless they are of a type that doesn’t, which is fairly rare.
Yes-radiographic progression while on ADT/estrogen connotes castrate resistance. I'm just saying that imaging may be a better first indicator if one has "treated PSA."
I believe even the best PSMA PET/CT requires a minimum level of PSA (0.5?) to be able to show mets - so how can it help in when metastasis occurs in the near-absence of PSA?
Because the 0.5 level you refer to is based on men who have not had met-directed therapy. Met-directed therapy lowers the serum PSA level. It is still possible that the untreated micromets are still growing and not contributing detectable amounts of serum PSA. As long as ADT is used systemically, those micromets are probably under control. But sometimes they aren't, so it is prudent to check every so often.
With psa consistently less than 0.1, should measuring ALP and LDH regularly be enough to discover met growth? Combined with an annual or so FDG PET which I believe detects mets in the absence of psa?
Bone ALP also depends on met size. LDH is not a great biomarker but should be checked. FDG PETs can detect metastases that don't express PSA. There are some experimental PET indicators (e.g., FAPI) that may prove more useful.
Fully agree.....unless lifestyle change gives necessary back up...I am not the same person after Cancer... My whole lifestyle has changed to include diet, exercise and mind...... After Bandage style therapy, I have to attack the cause of cancer..my lifestyle....which takes me to individual integrative therapy.....
Curious what the uptake level was to begin with on your pelvic spots. Or however it was denoted
With a T3 prostate cancer I would not assume ADT can cure the disease, only keep it in control. Which it is doing very effectively, based on your PSA result. I would never, ever stop taking medicine that keeps my cancer under control.
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