I've been diagnosed with Prostrate Cancer and I've read somewhere that Brachytheraphy is the new thing these days! Has anyone had these radio active seeds fitted and what is the success rate? Can anyone shine some light on this subject?
Sorry to read you have prostate cancer. I wasnt eligibal for this type of treatment and also my local area didnt do it at the time allthough that has now altered. I understand it is only suitable for those whose psa is not to high. Being a new treatment by comparison to some of the more widely used treatments, it has to be taken into account when looking at the sucess rate. From what I have read, the short/meduim sucess rate is equal to the usual treatments and some seem to suggest with slighly less side affects. There is another thing to take into account. With radio therapy, I had to have 37 treatment over a 7 1/2 week period with all the attendant traveling whereas this alternative normally means just the one trip to hospital.
I did do a lot of googling when I was diagnosed but would just offer a few words of advice. Please stick to well known sites like Cancer Research/ Macmillan or Prostate Cancer UK as thes are kept up to date. I found some, especially the American ones were very biased bearing in mind some are run by hopspital or drugs company and they seem to be biased towards their owm services/ products
Than you very much Brian your comments are very much appreciated. I agree completely with what you say about the Amercian sites. Now this is a battle i have to fight the worse bit will be telling my daughter, I'd just like to see my grandson on his 18th birthday. They informed me i will have the radioactive seeds implanted and then checked after 6 weeks later to see if they have moved the other information i couldn't recall dont know if it is my memory or the shock of being diagnosed with cancer. Since then i have read up on the treatment and know what to expect.
Once again Brian thank you for your comments and may I wish you all the very best.
I think you were like me when on being told my diagnosis, even though I was expecting cancer to be confirmed, afterwards I had trouble remembering what the oncologist had said. I was also like you worried about telling my wife the news when I got home. I had however been increasingly upping what I was telling her over the preceeding weeks so when I did get home and tell her it was confirmed as cancer she was not to surprised and took it much better than I could have hoped for, bearing in mind my wife has always been a worrier. She has since told me part of the reason she wasnt too worried was that she knew I would beat it as I have always been a positive type person. Womens intuiition at work.
I had two years of hormone therapy (zoladex) and a few months after starting this, 37 radiotherapy treatments, My psa at the start was 70 and came right down to 0.01, 12 weeks after finishing radiotherapy. Six years on, My psa is still only 0.87 so I am very pleased with this. So it can be beaten Dan and I feel quite confident you will see your grandson on his birthday. Sucess rate is improving all the time and I feel confident will continue as new drugs and procedure come on stream. Wishing you all the very best, take care Brian.
