Heidelberg

[Grommi]

we just had our appointment with the doc in Heidelberg, the 4 week Proton treatment seemed to have worked, the PSA went from 0,7 to 0,2. During the radiation, they ran a pet scan twice a week. My husband had no negative side effects with this radiation, life quality was good. The doctor was well pleased and has a positive outlook. Our next appointment will be in July, we are glad the daily drive to Heidelberg ist history. The bill will be paid by TRICARE, except our smaller part. Well, let’s hope that it will be good for the rest of our lifetime

[lewicki]

Good to hear of your good luck.

Why did you go to Heidelberg for proton and how did you get TRICARE to pay for it? Thanks

[Grommi in reply to lewicki]

Heidelberg is only one hour from us, and Proton is a radiation which doesn’t harm the surrounding tissue, life quality is also better, no big side effects. TRICARE pays for this treatment because it is in their program, also in America.

[lewicki in reply to Grommi]

Thank you. I went to the university of Heidelberg four time for ACtinium 225 and lu- 177. starting in 2019. Thirty months now PSA <0.04 and no ADT ( lupron).

I wonder if TRICARE pays for this also.

[Justfor_ in reply to Grommi]

There is a recent paper concluding that proton RT has 1/3 the risk of that of photon regarding secondary cancers. Said risk isn't negligible. Aggregating 10 different cancers treated with RT they came up with 1.55 per 100 patient years. This translates to 15.5% for a single patient within a period of 10 years forward. The superiority of proton vs photon in this respect was noted on all 9 cancer types with the exception of lung cancer. Prostate cancer was the best or second best (I am writing this out of memory) performer.

[Grommi in reply to Justfor_]

thank you for the info

[Grommi]

you can check this on the internet, TRICARE has a list of treatments they pay for

[Justfor_]

Here it is, if you are interested in more info:

"Second Cancer Risk After Primary Cancer Treatment with Three-Dimensional Conformal, Intensity-Modulated, or Proton Beam Radiation Therapy".

acsjournals.onlinelibrary.w...

"... The crude absolute incidence of second cancer per 100 patient-years was 1.55 overall (95% CI, 1.53-1.57), 1.60 after 3DCRT (95% CI, 1.57-1.62), 1.55 afterIMRT (95% CI, 1.53-1.57), and 0.44 after PBRT (95%CI, 0.37-0.52). ..."

Second cancer comparative odds ratio