how-tumors-suppress-the-development-of-metastases

[Scout4answers]

mdlinx.com/news/how-tumors-...

[cesces]

Hmmmm

Now you are really confusing me.

[Burk]

I read about this phenomenon from another source also.

Interesting!

[Don_1213]

Scout - and that may not be so bad.. medpagetoday.com/meetingcov...

"Metastasis-Directed Therapy for Prostate Cancer Increases PFS, Time off Hormones "

"Radiotherapy led to "dramatic" slowing of progression, increased time with normal testosterone"

So removing the mother load may increase the chance of metastasis, but zapping them with radiation slows the disease and less time with ADT.

As Hidden said - damned if you do - and damned if you don't.

[MateoBeach]

Early definitive treatment of localized (non-metastatic) PC is the only path with a high rate of true cures, whether with surgery or radiation. If mets are already present at diagnosis, with low burden or oligomets, then treatment of the prostate (mother ship) in APC extends PFS and OS. Removes a major source of signaling that promotes metastatic progression. So it appears.

I would not consider delaying definitive early treatment because of this confounder to be a wise strategy.

[noahware in reply to MateoBeach]

"the only path with a high rate of true cures"

I don't know how we would know what percentage of supposed cures are "true," because a certain number of cancers given early definitive treatment are already destined to NOT progress even without treatment.

If I throw buckets of water on what I think is a smoldering fire but is actually just a smoke machine, did I really "prevent" my house from burning down? Unfortunately we are not at a point where we definitively always know which early cancers or pre-cancers represent smoldering fires or which represent smoke machines, so better safe than sorry! (At least, so long as we can minimize the water damage.)

[jfoesq]

For better or worse, my prostate was removed a few months after DX over 10ths ago and I haven’t had any new tumors since. I am not advocating such surgery, as I believe studies have not shown a benefit, but, for now, I do appear to be worse off as a result of it.

[cancerfox]

So the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body, but then gets activated when the original source is removed. Radiation treatments must leave some of the cancer cells alive to act as a source of the metastasis-suppressing n fragment nANGPLT4, inhibiting individual dormant metastatic tumor cells. At least for a while. I wonder what would happen if the surgeons left some of the diseased prostate gland intact and only removed most of it? Would that inhibit possible metastasis? Or would that just be a ticking time bomb?