Starting Radiation 3D or IMRT

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Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I will be starting radiation soon. My 2nd psa came back confirmed at .3 Of course no one can say if it is local or distant. But I guess that goes for a majority of us on this newsgroup. I have hope that the radiation will have a least some impact. I know that the odds are against me but I do believe in miracles. My prayers are also with everyone in this newsgroup. At this time I am choosing 3D Conformal over IMRT – 39 days of it at around 70 gy. If you have any thoughts or ideas about the type of radiation I would appreciate it. On another note my Urologist wanted me to take Casodex and get a shot of ? before radiation. I talked with the Radiation/Oncology Dr. and he said he wouldn’t recommend me doing it at this time. . I personally don’t want to take hormones at this time. I would rather do the radiation and see if it has a positive effect. I know there is some studies out there that say it is beneficial to take hormones before radiation. What do you think? You learn things from this newsgroup that you wouldn’t from professional sources at times. The support and encouragement also helps. Thank you for your support and feedback. It is greatly appreciated. Don’t anyone lose hope. Let’s all pray hard for a cure or at least a very effective drug to stop the progression. Keep the faith. For those that have experienced success – I wish you continued success. Summer is coming. Lets all enjoy it. Dave P PSA 4.7 7/1/2002 Dx 8/15/2002 G6, T1c PSA 12.6.02 = <0.1, 3.12.02 = .3 Radiation Starting In Late March

Casodex blocks the receptor on the PCa cell so it can’t "eat" testosterone, something like filling your mouth with sand so you can’t eat. The radiation oncologist doesn’t like irradiating large prostates, so he prescribes Casodex to reduce the size of the prostate. After a few months, some PCa cells mutate so they can enjoy Casodex as well as testosterone, and those start multiplying. You stop taking Casodex and those PCa cells die off. Casodex and Lupron don’t do the same thing. Lupron tells your testes to stop making testosterone. This starves off the vast majority of the PCa cells, but a few don’t eat testosterone at all. These continue to grow and eventually your PSA starts going up again. The Casodex may slightly increase the fraction of PCa cells that don’t eat testosterone, by killing those that do….? Since only a small fraction of healthy prostate cells don’t need testosterone, I suspect they are not competitive and can’t survive and multiply well in the presence of other prostate cells. The effectiveness of Lupron should not be greatly reduced by previous use of Casodex.

Response:

I am hardly an expert in this sort of thing, but I can tell you what Walsh says in his book. It is believed that, at least in some circumstances, temporary use of hormone therapy before radiation makes the cancer cells more susceptible to radiation damage. Also, such temporary hormone therapy doesn’t seem to have any long term effects. Perhaps you should ask the doctors you consulted the reasons for their recommendations and then seek yet another opinion. If you understand the rationales, you may be in a better position to decide which conflicting recommendations to follow. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – You learn things from this newsgroup that you wouldn’t from professional sources at times. The support and encouragement also helps. Thank you for your support and feedback. It is greatly appreciated. Don’t anyone lose hope. Let’s all pray hard for a cure or at least a very effective drug to stop the progression. Keep the faith. For those that have experienced success – I wish you continued success. Summer is coming. Lets all enjoy it. Dave P PSA 4.7 7/1/2002 Dx 8/15/2002 G6, T1c PSA 12.6.02 = <0.1, 3.12.02 = .3 Radiation Starting In Late March

– Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208

Response:

I will be starting radiation soon. My 2nd psa came back confirmed at .3 Of course no one can say if it is local or distant. But I guess that goes for a majority of us on this newsgroup. I have hope that the radiation will have a least some impact. I know that the odds are against me but I do believe in miracles. My prayers are also with everyone in this newsgroup. At this time I am choosing 3D Conformal over IMRT – 39 days of it at around 70 gy. If you have any thoughts or ideas about the type of radiation I would appreciate it. On another note my Urologist wanted me to take Casodex and get a shot of ? before radiation. I talked with the Radiation/Oncology Dr. and he said he wouldn’t recommend me doing it at this time. . I personally don’t want to take hormones at this time. I would rather do the radiation and see if it has a positive effect. I know there is some studies out there that say it is beneficial to take hormones before radiation. What do you think? You learn things from this newsgroup that you wouldn’t from professional sources at times. The support and encouragement also helps. Thank you for your support and feedback. It is greatly appreciated. Don’t anyone lose hope. Let’s all pray hard for a cure or at least a very effective drug to stop the progression. Keep the faith. For those that have experienced success – I wish you continued success. Summer is coming. Lets all enjoy it. Dave P PSA 4.7 7/1/2002 Dx 8/15/2002 G6, T1c PSA 12.6.02 = <0.1, 3.12.02 = .3 Radiation Starting In Late March

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