A family member has prostate cancer with bone metastasis. He was diagnosed 9 years ago he has outlived his diagnosis. But it has spread and he has a tumour he wont talk about it but what do you think his life expectancy is now?
Hi Musky - that's really impossible to know based on so little information.
Survival statistics tend to be based on the percentage that survive 1 year or 5 years based in stage at diagnosis.
I don't know what stage he was at when he was diagnosed 9 years ago but over 30% survive prostate cancer for at least 5 years even when diagnosed at stage iv.
I'm guessing that he didn't have metastasis when first diagnosed and survival with early diagnosis is very good indeed - so 9 years is good but not exceptional.
It sounds as if he would probably be stage iv if he were diagnosed today. 1 year survival at stage 4 diagnosis is 80% and 5 years 30% however there are many other factors like how well he is getting on with his treatment - indeed whether he's still getting treatment that is effective.
I'm sorry but it's really hard forspecialist doctors to predict individual life expectancies even when they are intimately familliar with the case so for someone online to be able to guess is really tough
He was diagnosed 9 years ago with stage 4 as it had spread to his bones. They gave him 18-24 months. He has responded well to treatmentsoobviously.It has now spread further though. He doesnt talk about it all so it is very difficult.
Wow - Ok he is beating the odds, not hugely though like I say while he might have had a 2 year expectancy 30% make over 5 years. There is a big big variation in the numbers.
When things get into late stages things can happen very quickly. My wife was apparently fully healthy at the begining of September apart from the hair you'd never know she had cancer - she had a sudden complication and died on the first of October. But without that she might have managed many months.
Anyway don't worry about how long it probably doesn't really matter what's important is not the number of days but what you get into them.
I'm not surprised he doesn't want to talk about it it's going to be very scarey as you can imagine and thinking about it probably doesn't help. You can help by taking his mind off it a bit - try and find ways to have a bit of fun with him. Talk about other things - normal things as if the cancer didn't exist. He probably spends a lot of time thinking, worrying about it time he can just be normal is probably so precious
