treatment and insurance questions

gleason 4+3=7 (70% pattern 4) involving one core less than 0.5mm. PSA 5.2. Biopsy results confirmed by MRI. I am 64 years old and will be 65 in December. I have horrible insurance with very limited treatment options. I would like to delay treatment until I have Medicare (5 months). I have met with one urologist and 3 radiologists over the past 3 months and all acted like I am out of my mind for suggesting waiting. To everyone's surprise the insurance company did approve Proton Therapy - 2 of the radiologists I met with have nothing good to say about Proton Therapy. The center that does Proton treatment here recently filed for bankruptcy and I'm pretty sure they are desperate for patients. I have an appointment next week at the Mayo clinic in Jacksonville to discuss Focal therapy - I have to pay them a $5000 deposit just to meet with the urologist. I don't know what to do.

[Tall_Allen]

You can start hormone therapy until you qualify for Medicare. That will prevent progression.

There is no known advantage to proton therapy.

Focal ablation has been proven to be inadequate:

prostatecancer.news/2016/12...

prostatecancer.news/2021/03...

[Hidden in reply to Tall_Allen]

Thanks for the reply.

There is so much disinformation about treatment. This is from the Proton Center website comparing Proton therapy to Photon radiation. I don't think any of it is true, yet there it is on their website. It is hard to know who to believe.

5% increase in Overall Survival Rate for intermediate risk prostate cancer

21% decrease in risk of urinary toxicity

25% decrease in risk of erectile dysfunction

35% decrease in radiation to the bladder

42% decrease in relative risk of developing a secondary malignancy

50% decrease in treatment-related bowel frequency and urgency

59% decrease in radiation to the rectum

[Tall_Allen in reply to Hidden]

There has never been a randomized comparison between protons and photons. From non-comparative clinical trials, they seem similar:

prostatecancer.news/2016/08...