RE: Negative Surgical Margins and extra-capsular extension

[Guest guest]

Bob,

I'd like to add a few notes to Chuck's excellent advice.

It's impossible to know for sure why your surgery failed.  It might have failed

because the surgeon didn't do a great job.  However it also might have failed

because some cancer had already escaped the prostate and just couldn't be

reached by surgery.  If that were true then the best surgeon in the world

wouldn't have been able to cure you.

There are now two main courses of therapy open to you.  One is radiation.  If

the cancer has gotten out of the area of the prostate, radiation won't cure it

either.  The statistics say that your chance of success with radiation is less

than 50/50, maybe a lot less.  So it's hard to say whether it's worth trying or

not.  You need a very good doctor to advise you on whether it's worth a shot.

The other course of treatment, as Chuck explained, is hormone therapy.  There

are different kinds of hormone therapy and it's desirable to find a medical

oncologist who has a lot of experience with prostate cancer if you can.  Hormone

therapy won't cure you.  It might however hold your cancer in check long enough

for you to grow old and die of something else.  It all depends on how hormone

sensitive your cancer turns out to be.

Best of luck.

    Alan

[Guest guest]

Bob,

I'd like to add a few notes to Chuck's excellent advice.

It's impossible to know for sure why your surgery failed.  It might have failed

because the surgeon didn't do a great job.  However it also might have failed

because some cancer had already escaped the prostate and just couldn't be

reached by surgery.  If that were true then the best surgeon in the world

wouldn't have been able to cure you.

There are now two main courses of therapy open to you.  One is radiation.  If

the cancer has gotten out of the area of the prostate, radiation won't cure it

either.  The statistics say that your chance of success with radiation is less

than 50/50, maybe a lot less.  So it's hard to say whether it's worth trying or

not.  You need a very good doctor to advise you on whether it's worth a shot.

The other course of treatment, as Chuck explained, is hormone therapy.  There

are different kinds of hormone therapy and it's desirable to find a medical

oncologist who has a lot of experience with prostate cancer if you can.  Hormone

therapy won't cure you.  It might however hold your cancer in check long enough

for you to grow old and die of something else.  It all depends on how hormone

sensitive your cancer turns out to be.

Best of luck.

    Alan