Fw: Re: Curing PCa early?--Is it ever cured?

[Guest guest]

I think that rather than agonize over the word cure , it would be more useful to look at the perponderence of the evidence of all of those whom we know and have known of , who have this disease. Look around and ask yourself how many patients do you personally know of who have been cured , or, any that you know of at any support group or online list who claim to be cured (and whom you believe is a legitimate poster and not trying to sell you something) . I once asked 20 men on an online support group , men whom themselves were not cured, if they personally knew of anyone else with PCa and if any of them were cured. They all knew several people and no one knew of anyone who had been cured. I have met a few men who claim that they have been cured but none of them had passed the 5

year mark and as we all know, it takes time for metastasis to grow large enough to be detected. Often times years.

Dr. Judah Folkman had done studies with mice which showed that there are chemical signals from the primary tumor that exert a chemical influence over distant metastasis to keep them from growing. But, once the primary tumor is removed , those signals are no longer present and the micrometastasis begin to grow. The fact is, there is so much more that we do not know about this disease than we do know and the issue of a cure can get very complicated. Realisticly speaking, I don't think that any doctor can tell you with any degree of certainty that you are cured. There is no means that exist presently that allow him to prove such a claim.

There are also studies out there that claim that cancer in the prostate consists of daughter cells of stem cells that are not located within the prostate itself. Those researchers claim that this is the reason why it's so difficult to cure prostate cancer as all treatments target only the daughter cells in the prostate and not the stem cells. And to complicate matters even more, a few years back in one of it's PR releases , Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston stated that up to 10 pct of men who go to them for a second opinion that had come from community hospitals in fact do not have PCa at all but some kind of fungal infection that had been misdiagnosed as PCa . And yet another study that I read stated that up to 80 pct of men have their treatment at Community Hospital settings and not big time Academic teaching facilities

like Dana Farber (which is an arm of Brighams and Womens Hospital) and Harvard University Medical school. So, one has to ask oneself if up to 10 pct of the patients that Dana Farber is seeing who have been Dx with PCa at a community hospital really do not have PCa to begin with and that 80 pct of men who are Dx with PCa are treated in their community setting, what does it mean? It means that there are a percentage of men out there who have been treated for PCa who did not have PCa in the first place and they of course are going to end up on the cure side of the ledger feeling very, very lucky and believing they have beat the odds.

I say to ask about how many you know personally because when you hear statistics like 70 pct of men are cured if treated early but you don't know of any and no one else you know knows of any, you have to accept the reality that your lay person definition of cure may not even be in the same ball park as those of hospitals and doctors. We used to have something called the 5 year survival rate when it came to cancer. Now it's referred to as the 5 year cure rate. Even though that sounds a lot more positive, when you hear or read this , one has to realize that they are one and the same. I do not know if the linguistic acrobatics are helpful or not to the patient. But they very well may be to those who make up the statistics. What I do know is that every man who lives up to 5 years after treatment, even though he may still have an active case of PCa which is progressing and he is actively

being treated, that man becomes part and parcel of the 5 year cure rate statistic. Even if he passes away in the sixth or seventh year from PCa. He won't be part of any 10 year cure rate statistic but he certainly will be in the 5 year cure rate statistic. This may sound bizzare but that's the way it is and no one is asking men about their condition or excluding them from that statistic if they live the 5 years. Now I do not know if this is where the 70 pct cure rate popped up from but you can see that the situation gets very murky when you deal with the authoritive sources when inquiring about statistics. It's not as simple as it's so often presented to the public. Since we now have the internet and access to literally thousands of PCa patients, I think it would be prudent to keep a mental tabulation of the patients you know and the actual world you know around you , live in and are absolutely sure of, before buying into or relying on some

statistical analysis whose baseline and basis you may not even be able to unravel or figure out.

There is also the issue of self-reported statistics of cures by celebrity doctors like Walsh and ph Scardino. As a patient you have a right to your medical records but you do not have a right to anyone else's medical records. These doctors have the records of all of their patients and they report their success and cure rates from those records. Yet there is no government medical body/agency that has the authority to simply show up at these doctors doors and demand to see their patient records to verify their claims. That , at least in the U.S., is a long drawn out legal process and such medical authorities would have to show sufficient probable cause for any court to allow any medical board or government agency to examine their records and intrude on the privacy of a private physician and his private patients. So in essence, they can say whatever they want to say and you have to accept

it. You cannot demand proof because it is illegal for any doctor to show you any other patients medical records. And rightfully so. It's only if they run afoul of the law that anyone can gain access to their records so unless that happens to a doctor, he is essentially free to beat his own drum to a large extent. Obvously if some doctor or hospital were to make some fantastic claims about their success that deviated too far from the accepted norm then the authorities would be forced to demand proof and seek the legal means to do so . Otherwise I don't see any pressure to verify by statistical analysis hospital or doctor records and their claims of cures. Especially with cancer, a disease for the most part no doctor is ever expected to cure as a matter of routine. An Apendecotomy or a broken leg yes, but not cancer. Cancer patients unfortunately, are not expected to get better. We ourselves of course expect and

hope to get better but that is not what the world and the general public expects of us. Other than of course our families and those who personally care about us. Medical boards and authorities are more concerned and too bogged down with, having to keep track of unnecessary injuries and deaths caused by doctors and hospitals of which there are now over 200,000 annually. Happy endings are always welcomed but seldom investigated by medical governing authorities. They don't have the time. Occasionally we learn of something by accident when a doctor runs afoul of the law or too many of his patients die statistically compared to other doctors in his specialty. But I think that mitigating the claims of cures and successes is not high on the list of things for medical governing bodies to concern themselves so long as their injury and death statistics do not deviate too far from the norm.

Realistically, no evidence of disease is about as joyful as one should be able to report. As that of course is something to rejoice.

Cheers, BOB

Subject: Curing PCa early?--Is it ever cured?To: ProstateCancerSupport Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 9:38 AM

Hi All,

I have a question..I have read postings when men say the have cured their Prostate Cancer. I've been doing research since 2008 and with everything I've learned if left me with the thought that Prostate Cancer is never really cured..It can be like a sleeping giant if not watched and monitored. Is my understanding wrong??? My husband had 44 IMRT treatments and one year of hormones ( Zoladex) and now his PSA is slowly raising. I hope someone can straighten me out on this. I keep you all in my thoughts and prayers. Have a nice day.

Best Wishes,

Sheila