Hi Essex-tink, and a warm welcome to the forum,  though I'm sorry you have to be here, more so after the sad loss of your mum so recently. 

Your brothers TNM staging doesn't seem right, a T2 tumour means it is contained in one side of the prostate, so the N1 and M1a, don't add up, they suggest lymph node involvement inside and outside the pelvic area, a T2 diagnosis has an almost 100% chance of cure, and it's possible hormone therapy HT can control it for a very long time, could I ask you to check his stats again, and ask his doctors where and how many lymph nodes are involved, PS, I had 8 and after treatment, 7 show no sign of cancer and one is very much smaller, I also had cancer in 5 organs, which also show no sign of disease, so to answer your question, there's always a good chance of many years to come.

Eddie xx 

Hi Eddie,

the letter says.

Underwent PSMA PET scan which showed metastatic disease with increased uptake within the prostate and seminal vesicles with positive lymph nodes involving the right internal iliac, external iliac, iliac node stations plus trace of positive retroperitoneal retrocaval node. Focus also in left common iliac station, therefore re-staged at T2 N1 M1a metastatic prostate cancer.

all this after being left for 2 years after initial treatment for T2.

this was actually diagnosed by his gp so sent to hospital who oriole him that his doctor doesn’t know what he is talking about.

i feel things may have been different if he hadn’t repeatedly been let down

Nikki xx

Hi Nikki,  I must say your brothers stats were very similar to mine, with seminal vesicle involvement left and right iliac, mesorectal and peri rectal node involvement, I'm just not sure why their saying he's T2, and not T4, and I can emphasise with the  less than perfect care your brother has received, sadly this is not uncommon, as I know from experience, and will impact his treatment, requiring a  much more aggressive treatment, than it should have been. I remember you talking about hormone therapy HT, this will deprive the cancer of the food it needs to survive and grow, namely testosterone, and it can keep the cancer in check for many years, there are several very good HT treatments available to do this, but they won't kill the cancer, for that you will need radiotherapy, RT, chemotherapy CT, or both.

There is a wonderful book, Fighting prostate cancer Asurvival guide, by Jyioti Shah, well worth reading 

Eddie xx