Hi Anne63 Sorry to hear about your husband I my self think all treatment are no better then the watch and waiting The reason I say this is I'm on holistically alterative treatment it working quite well for me my psa coming down and I feel better my frand say Ive lost that gray look we get when we have cancer .
but in 2007 for me it was a deferant story I had a psa of 4 an gleasion score of 7 and I was trying to get treatment I realy think three months after the biopsy thing got realy worst I realy think the biopsy spread cancer though out my body three months after the biopsy I found not only did I use up all my money seeing doctors I ended up with it in my lower back and my ribs then the same doctors told me there was not much they caold do for me I was in a lot of pain I ened up seeing a naterpath she advise me to go on a cause of liquad cellular Zeolitte 15 drops 4 times a day high dos vitamin C and Zinc the pain stoped and my urine retenion started to disapper wint in a week or so. A bone scan a year later found it was gone. from my bones but I still had cancer in my prostate I found over the last two years the main thing with prostate cancer is antioxidante and stoping the sugar intake see this link
http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/nutrition/sugar.htm
and as far as Potion therapy go's a lot of these can cost up to $200,000.00 and can be quite exhausting one cc member Scydan said the Potion radiation treatment he had after treatment his cancer still come back with a psa of 28 he on what I'm on now holistically therapy is now doing well but he was so let down for what the exspeced from his treament he wrote a book called Advanced Prostate cancer and me the reasion Im telling you about the book is, it has a grate deal of information on treatment opion and posible out comes But for me Im happy to just stay on watchand wating and remaind on my Holically therapy if you want to know about this let me know below is only a few more opions from the Radiolagyinfo site all the best Ray
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=pros_cancer
There are many treatment options for prostate cancer that is confined to the prostate gland. Each option should be considered carefully, balancing the advantages against the disadvantages as they relate to the individual man's age, overall health and personal preferences.
Historical standard options include:
Surgery (radical prostatectomy): An incision is made in the lower abdomen or through the perineum (between the anus and the scrotum), and the prostate is removed. Incomplete surgery, in which the entire tumor cannot be removed, may be followed by radiation therapy. Possible side effects of surgery can include incontinence (inability to control urination) and impotence (inability to achieve erection). More recently, several centers are using three small incisions to do robot assisted prostatectomy that results in shorter hospitalization and faster recuperation.
External beam therapy (EBT): a method for delivering a beam of high-energy x-rays to the location of the tumor. The beam is generated outside the patient (usually by a linear accelerator) and is targeted at the tumor site. These x-rays can destroy the cancer cells and careful treatment planning allows the surrounding normal tissues to be spared. No radioactive sources are placed inside the patient's body. See the External Beam Therapy page for more information.
Watchful waiting: No treatment, with careful observation and medical monitoring.
Newer, advanced options have been developed in the past 10 to 15 years. These newer options avoid or minimize some of the unpleasant side effects sometimes associated with the standard therapies. These options include:
Nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy: Surgical procedure in which the prostate gland is removed without severing the critical nearby nerves that send signals between the brain and penis to allow normal sexual functioning. A skilled and experienced surgeon may be able to preserve sexual function in 50 percent to 90 percent of patients by successfully using this procedure.
Conformal external beam radiation therapy: Uses advanced technology to tailor the radiation therapy to an individual's body structures. Relying on computerized three-dimensional images of the prostate, bladder and rectum, the x-ray radiation beam is aimed precisely ("conformed") to affect the diseased area. In this way, less radiation reaches the surrounding normal tissues. Today there are two levels of conformal radiation therapy: 3-D conformal radiation therapy and intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Both allow for increased doses to the tumor while protecting the normal surrounding organs. IMRT is considered the more conformal of the two but is not necessary or appropriate for all patients. For more detailed information see the Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy page.
Image-guided radiation therapy: for either 3-D conformal or IMRT, daily image guidance is increasingly used. Typically three gold fiducial markers, or tiny pieces of metal, are placed in the prostate before the simulation and treatment. X-rays are taken either with the same beam as that of the treatment or an add-on low energy x-ray beam aligned to the linear accelerator. The metallic markers will be visible on the x-rays. This is done to check the position of the prostate on a daily basis just before the treatment and appropriate adjustment and alignment of prostate to high-dose external beam radiation therapy.
Proton beam therapy: a type of conformal therapy that bombards the diseased tissue with protons instead of x-rays. See the Proton Therapy page for more information.
Cryotherapy: A procedure that uses extremely low temperatures (-190°C) to freeze and destroy cancer cells. Some experienced physicians have had good results with low complication rates using cryotherapy; however, others have not. This should be considered experimental at this time as upfront treatment for prostate cancer, until there is longer follow-up for patients treated with this modality. This technique was developed as an alternative to surgery for patients who have recurrent cancer in the prostate after radiation treatments. For more detailed information, see the Cryotherapy page.
Brachytherapy: the temporary placement of radioactive materials within the body, usually employed to give an extra dose—or boost—of radiation to the area of the excision site. See the Brachytherapy page for more information. Brachytherapy is used on rare occasions.
LDR (Low Dose Rate) Brachytherapy: The temporary placement of radioactive materials within the body, usually employed to give an extra dose—or boost—of radiation to the area of the excision site. See the Brachytherapy page for more information. With seed implant treatment, radiation hits the prostate first, and only then strikes normal tissues. While the implant technique has been around for decades, recent advances in imaging technology have made it more effective. Using ultrasound to see the prostate gland better, physicians can place each seed in the prostate more carefully and better control the effect on surrounding tissues. Long-term results are available for up to 10—12 years at some institutions. These results show that ultrasound-guided radioactive implantation is highly effective in controlling prostate cancer and has essentially the same result as surgery or external radiation for appropriately selected low-risk prostate cancer patients.
High Dose Rate (HDR) Brachytherapy: This technique was developed to supplement the dose of radiation given as external beam therapy for patients with high risk prostate cancer. In skilled hands, this is an effective regimen to treat such cancers. Patients receive several weeks of standard external beam radiation therapy, followed by one to three HDR sessions. These sessions require anesthesia and placement of several needles into the prostate. The patient is then hooked up to the HDR machine, where a radioactive source moves up and down each needle, delivering radiation. This type of brachytherapy leaves no permanent radiation in the patient.
Use of this technique by itself (i.e., without the external beam treatments) for low-risk patients is still in the experimental stages.
a patient who undergoes conventional radiation therapy is exposed to X-rays. As they pass through both healthy and diseased tissue, X-rays leave a track of damage - much like a bullet. This damage can help destroy tumors, but may cause significant harm to surrounding areas.
Protons is supose to cause less damage to healthy tissue as they enter the body, and deposit the majority of their destructive energy at the tumor site. As a result, normal, healthy tissue receives less exposure to radiation, resulting in fewer treatment complications
I read so menny patient say they have damage to there bowl Ive read damage is dome to the DNA of the cell around the prostrate exspely as the the bowl rest closs to it this can lead to bowl problems later on also the
My husband is only 51 and has prostate cancer. His PSA is 4.1 his Gleason is a 7 (3+4). He does not want to be impotent or incontinent. What should he do? I have not seen anything on this site about Proton therapy any reason for that