MLTD - PSA Roulette - Prostate Symposium

And the quaternary number is:  4.9!

Bad News:  The number is up from 4.6 where is was three months ago.

Good News:  My "doubling time"  is 7.35 years.  This means that the cancer is still very slow growing.

I went to a Prostate Cancer Symposium on Saturday and heard Dr. Peter Carroll speak. He's someone who is very highly regarded in the field and also someone who is doing much of the most interesting studies on the strategic level of the disease (most researchers have their heads down in the genetic code).

What I got from the talk is that this is a time where researchers are just starting to get a handle on the disease and are moving toward methods of treatment that retain some level of quality of life that the current methods just don't do. This has been accomplished to some degree with breast cancer, but not with prostate cancer at this point.

I also got the sense that urologists are coming around to the idea that not all cancers have to be immediately treated (new studies show that for slow growing cancers such as mine, there is no difference in mortality for those of us that wait versus immediate treatment).

Still, I'm swimming upstream here. Only 6% of diagnosed patients opt for "Active Surveillance." Luckily, I have a urologic surgeon who is not knife happy and jokes with me about eating nuts and berries as a cure. He knows that I know that it's not a cure, but he also can't argue with the fact that the cancer hasn't gone much of anywhere over the past two years, so he doesn't bother.  At almost 59 years old, this is the first time in a long time that I've been too young for something.

Of course, I did get the reminder that the big knife is probably coming at some point. The question is when. It would be different if I was diagnosed at 65 when most guys get the news, but I'm too young to ignore it.

So, it's good that I went (even with the periodic terror that things like this engender which keeps me on my toes). I did find out something interesting:  Do you know what is the largest source of mortality for those of us with prostate cancer?  Heart attack. More men with prostate cancer die of cardiac problems than of any other cause. They keel over before the cancer can kill them.

Time to get back on the treadmill and lose some weight.

Comments

[terry]

My stepfather died of prostate cancer. Of course, he was 86....