Hi there, asking for your help for my father.Cancer gave us a lot of time keeping my father to not to worry about it (3 years and a half on Zytiga). However, yesterday we realized by going to emergency my father had metastasis all over his body, including the brain.( He previously had metastasis at the lung and he received SBRT)
He is receiving radiation to the brain, and doc says next steps are to start with doctexactel.Any thoughts on next steps?
At this point, what can we expect? How long do you think he can be alive?
Thanks in advance for your help
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Noel91
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I cannot tell how long he will live. He got small cell lung cancer, neuroendocrine tumor, Gleason 9 and and as you write "mets all over his body". I cannot make a guess for that situation.
Sorry about your situation.
I understand the reluctance here to answer your question about life expectancy, but I think you should be able to have some general idea of what to expect.
Here's an article on the subject which includes prognosis and overall survival stats.
To each his or her own. At dx my regrets, my overwhelming panic, my sadness, the end of the future I thought I would have ( as Adoh put it so well) the weight of the world were immense and stupidly I put myself thru more hell by trying to gauge my expectancy. I stay far from that these days. Just the thought of it puts a lump in my throat. I enjoy every day and look forward to successful future treatments when the time comes in lieu of progression.Lucky. That's what I have been so far.
I appreciate your comments. I feel the same way that you and others do about just taking each day and living in the present. But regardless of how you and I might feel about the answer to that question, others have the right to ask it and get a straight answer. I was a similar situation with my dad, and I felt like I was being treated like a child.
It's different for those who are newly diagnosed and those who are in late stage with poor prognosis. The newly diagnosed have many treatments available to them and the variability of how well and long they work makes it much harder to estimate life expectancy.
My lazy brain. I should have tried to include that I agreed that an answer was somewhat her right. Someone had to make the attempt and you did. For lack of a better word (lazy brain again) I commend you on that.
I just lazily thru out my first reaction.
And yes definitely those diagnosed with low gleason, involvement I can see actually quite a bit of expectancy research. I probably would.
But yea not for me.
This forum has really been a big help, relief for me.
Pretend you know nothing and enter PSA 1621 in a internet search as I did at dx. Nothing good came of that lol.
I haven't looked at the link you gave her. Typically this type of info. is outdated and the current treatment outlooks aren't part of the mix.Should someone caution her in how she perceives the info. in the link given to her?
Thanks both for your comments, it seems to be use cases review until 2010 so I am not sure if the treatments have improved overtime. moreover he still did not go through Docetxatel so I do not know...
Asking for the time because I am thinking of requesting part time in my job, to spend the most time possible with him
Sorry to hear this. No one knows a timeline especially when it comes to cancer. Everyone responds differently to treatment and there are so many types of chemo, ADTs, trials, and so on that can be tried when one fails. They can do radiation for the brain mets, my friend did SBRT radiation for his brain mets and then one small spot remained so they used the gamma knife and that worked to get rid of it, that was 3 years ago and he's still here. My dad had 2 heart attacks and 3 strokes, bounced back from those then diagnosed in 2016 stage 4 APC with mets to the base of the skull, humerus, ribs, sternum, both illiacs, T & L spine and its been 6 years and he is still here and doing well. No one knows when anyones expiration date will be, so we need to hope for the best and cherish every moment. Good luck to your dad and your family!
Your father has an amazing medical history. If I understand it right, he had two heart attacks and three strokes, and after that he was diagnosed with stage 4 PCa, and now, 6 years later he's still "doing well".
Thanks! Yes! It’s crazy, one stroke knocked out the feeling in his left leg then he got the feeling all back the last one made him lose his speech and he got that back 100% , I call him the bionic man, he’s 89 and smart as a whip!
Prostate cancer. He did chemo and radiation in the beginning. Then started Xtandi about 2 years in failed , they tried Zytiga it worked a year then failed that, they did chemo then they threw back in the Zytiga after he finished that and it worked again, I had not heard of doing this but it’s working and it is still working round 2 and it’s been many years. He also had a few small positive nodes on one lung which seemed to help those, they’re stable and smaller. There are so many drug combos that can be tried until one works. Also don’t read the prognoses articles online, a lot are not updated and we have so many more options these days. Hang in there.
No, he ndoesn't. Are you thinking on that because the cancer metastasized to the brain? We asked for Keytruda but doc said that did not demonstrate effectiveness in PC
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