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Focus on Advanced Disease
Patient information: Advanced prostate cancer
Advanced Prostate Cancer - Sharing Experiences
Clinical Trials
Let me be blunt and say to start with so we have a base to go from. This is something that if you fit into this category - you are not going to want to hear. Most all men who have been diagnosed with a Gleason 8 or above and it has been verified by an expert will probably die from this disease at some point in time - could be 3 to 12 yeas and even longer or shorter for a relative few. We do not know when that time will come but new research may be giving us even that information. Even men with a verified Gleason of 4+3=7 will fall into that same category. Treatment for these men will always should be combination type treatments. These patients should be consulting with a Medical Oncologist who is an expert on prostate cancer as soon as they are diagnosed. Run not walk to one. Do not acccept any single treatment from a doctor. Hormonal Ablation therapy is almost always a part of treatment at this stage. I suggest you read the section on HT by clicking on "Hormonal Ablation Treatment"
Let me add one more consideration to this. Following any initial treatment the PSA should get down below 0.2 and even 0.1 is better. Following surgery this should be very quickly. Following any type of radiation it could take 3 to 5 years. With hormonal ablation therapy the PSA should get to 0.05 or less in the first 3 to 6 months. If these PSA points are not reached you will be looking at possible failure based on how close it gets. The further up the scale the faster the failure will occur.
If you have been initially treated and there is a consistent rise of your PSA, we call this "Advanced Disease". At this point there almost always is a spread of the disease to other places in the body. There are several phases of Advanced Disease that has different treatments. We will try to cover these different levels of Advanced Disease. Below is an excellent beginning coverage.
Focus on Advanced Disease
The Prostate Cancer Foundation has published several very comprehensive booklets which are called "Reports to the Nation". There was one in 2002 and again in 2004. In 2005 they released one called "Report to the Nation - Focus on Advanced Disease". You can download this edition by clicking "here". This publication is for health care professionals so it may be a little deeper than what you are use to reading. For other reports do a search here on "Report to the Nation" (with the quotes).
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Patient information: Advanced prostate cancer
Following is from the beginning of an article "Patient information: Advanced prostate cancer" by Nancy A Dawson and Diane MF Savarese and published by "Up to Date Information". You can read the complete article by clicking here.
"UpToDate" performs a continuous review of over 375 journals and other resources. Updates are added as important new information is published. The literature review for version 15.3 is current through August 2007; this topic was last changed on September 17, 2007. The next version of UpToDate (16.1) will be released in March 2008.
INTRODUCTION — Over the last 20 years, more cases of prostate cancer have been detected in the early stages, when it is confined to the prostate gland. Prostate cancer that is confined within the prostate gland can be effectively treated and is often cured (show figure 1).
However, approximately 15 to 20 percent of newly diagnosed prostate cancers are advanced by the time they are detected, meaning that the cancer has spread outside the prostate gland (called locally advanced prostate cancer) and/or involved the lymph nodes or other organs (called metastatic prostate cancer).
Cases of advanced prostate cancer can also occur in men who are initially treated for localized disease and whose prostate cancer then recurs (commonly referred to as a relapse). Following treatment of early stage prostate cancer, men are routinely monitored with blood PSA levels. A rising PSA level suggests that prostate cancer has returned (termed a recurrence). Often, there is no evidence of metastatic cancer in the bones or other tissues at the time the PSA is rising, and the rising PSA is the only sign that the prostate cancer has recurred.
These men represent a unique category of advanced prostate cancer for two reasons: (continued on the URL)
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Advanced Prostate Cancer - Sharing Experiences
Sharing experiences, support and advice for men with advanced & recurrent Prostate Cancer.
This is a BLOG site of a man writing about Advanced disease and other things of interest to those diagnosed. It is well written and has valuable information. You may have to search a little to find things but it may be worth it.
Click "here" to read the complete BLOG.
Clinical Trials
We have a page in the "Treatment " section about Clinical Trials. You may read the information by clicking "here".
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Salvage of Local Therapy
Articles, Studies and Links
Hormone Refractory (HRPC)
Bisphosphonates precautions
The Research of Bill Aishman
Chemotherapy
Pain Management
Death and Dying
PHID Advanced Archives
