I am 60 and have been diagnosed with localised, non-metastatic, low grade prostate cancer:
Grade 1/Gleason 6
cT2c
intermediate risk
65 cc size (moderate)
A detailed CT-PET scan (PSMA) (in addition to biopsy and MRI) lit up a fair bit and has shown moderate amount of bilateral disease but oddly in places not indicated on MRI or biopsy (anterior right), but various places. The urologist was concerned at the volume of disease (even if Grade 1) and suggests radical surgery and a referral to his mate who does the robocut. Seems overkill to me? I do not want to risk the side effects of ED (43-60% still have significant ED 2 years after surgery or radiation (e.g., UpToDate website peer-reviewed articles). I want AS if appropriate...with drugs to shrink the disease.
Biopsy: transperineal: "involving 15% of combined length of the tissue" in one "targeted" area on one side, no evidence in the templated area of that side...and only <5% of combined length on the other templated side. So that would be "less than half"?
Over on Advanced Prostate Cancer group TA said staging should only be by palpation and said my stage was wrong as imaging and biopsy should not be used. But biopsy is used for T1c?? I am following up with urologist to see what system if any he uses. Is it AJCC8 or grandpa's best guess? I do not know what the DRE result was. I am in New Zealand as they didn't bother to tell me (and I forgot to ask).
I have mild BPH.
I am keen to start the repurposed drugs/metabolic approach (e.g., COC protocol; Jane McLelland's book) and with any additional drugs recommended. I am very familiar with the approach as my wife survived rare sarcoma for 6 years and was on a modified COC protocol for that time. She passed away 2 years ago but her prognosis was only 20% chance of 5-year survival after she got mets so I believe the COC protocol was the key to 6-year survival.
My question is whether starting COC is a good idea for me now, even before prostate cancer has spread.
I am keen to hear the experiences and advice of others who may have taken this pre-emptive approach, which drugs in addition to the COC drugs did they use, and how they are progressing. A search on for "COC protocol" here brought up zero and "repurposed drugs" only two posts. Maybe folk are not familiar with the metabolic approach to starving cancer?
Here's a 2023 ref on repurposed drugs for cancer but there are hundreds on PubMed:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Many thanks in advance.