Hi Logo,

First, not sure I'm going to make Maui this summer --- the heat is rolling over the prairies and I'm anxious to get to the cottage. But, I'll not visit without warning you!

Second, interesting question.

I had a brother-in-law die of pancreatic cancer, and a few weeks ago a dear friend died of ovarian cancer. Two "bad" cancers. The problem with them is that when they present the cancer is already well established and the unlucky person is likely in their last days already. I don't think the issue is Gleason 10 compared to these sorts of cancers. The issue is when is a Gleason 10 diagnosed, compared to whatever other cancer you want to compare to. Granted, some cancers spread faster than others and do terminal damage quicker. And, granted, PCa may be one of the statistically less awful ones, but I don't think it's possible to compare one cancer to another --- except they are all awful.

Others may well have a different, and better, understanding.

Sheldon AKA Sleepless

Few cancers compare to pancreatic and liver cancers. When they are advanced there is little that can be done.

This is not the case with Gleason 10 prostate cancer. However that stated, G10 prostate cancer is very serious and it can progress rapidly. I have seen cases respond to therapy come by here (Smilingoldcoot is doing well on the cancer front but has had some challenges elsewhere - he is at 3 years post HT, seeds, and proton therapy)

Breast cancer and prostate cancer have closer similarities that G10 may be the same. However I know many men that have grade 5 cells survive for well over ten years.

Tony

Logo- you wouldn't believe the spectrum in PCa's the worst case I know of is with 'small cell PCa' the guys wife posted on a forum he was just diagnosed (probably late with bone pains and such), well he died in between week 2 and 3 thereafter even under some docs care (not sure of his protocols). Her second post on the forum was informing us of his death....saddest case I ever heard of. Small cell has a very risky prognosis, some drugs or chemos don't even respond to it.

Others that are crazy to some degree in PCa variants: squamous cell, signet ring and another one I can't think of right now. Most people have acinar adenocarcinoma which is the better news, I suppose. The variants are rarer.

PCa is not just one variety, to many variables, DNA ploidy, variants, missed biopsy areas that can harbor a different Gleason score, too. Wild n crazy to say the least.

It depends on how fast the cancer is growing. Lung and pancreatic double in a matter of weeks as most prostate cancers double in years. The very agressive types double in months. It takes 44 doubling for any cancer to go from cell stage to complete invasion of the organs. So the speed in which it is doubling is a good indicator of how long you have.
JohnT

It's math (from a post I made last September):

"If you say that cancer begins with a single cell that doubles every year, it would take 40 years for the cancer to get over a kilogram (100, 000, 000, 000 cells). Who knows if that's true. It could be that PCa arises from multiple cells, or that as it grows, more malignant clones of cells arise and the doubling time increases. "

Postoperative, your 44 doublings is roughly validated in this paper (for breast cancer) that mentions 30 doublings for conventional detection and an additional 10 for fatality.
http://www.biomath.ucla.edu/vsavage/guiot.pdf

Of course, the doubling rate depends on cancer type, and isn't uniform over time, but around 40 doublings seem to be the critical mass.

I just worked it out by looking up the weight of a cell, and guessing out that a kilogram of tumor cells, showing up in lumps in the wrong places in your body would kill you. The rest is arithmetic--2 to the 40th power x the weight of a cell = 1 kg, so 40 doublings is lethal. Glad to know that that there is an actual study that comes up with about the same answer, and that I wasn't just making a wild guess. The main point is that it means that for most of the "life" of a cancer, it is too small to cause symptoms. It's only a few doublings from symptoms to death, unless something is done to either slow the doubling time or kill off a large fraction of the cancer cells.

David,
I heard it from Dr Scholz. If anyone would know a trained mdeical oncologist should. In prostate cancer doubling time usually remains constant as it is genetic to the cell type.
JT

FWIW, my uro pointed out to me that a 4+3=7 is 3 times more aggressive than a 3+4=7. As a g9, that did not make me feel better.

K

The best treatment for cancer is early detection and aggressive treatment.  Both of my cancers are stage 2 and both are in remission as the result.  PSA tests and chest xrays (for COPD) did the detecting and surgery/chemo did the treatment.

Jim

PostOp, although that article confirms the idea of roughly 40 doublings to lethal cancer, I'd be careful about applying specific details to PC. The article says "The smallest cancer that can be detected by examination, x-ray or scan is a little less than one fourth inch in diameter," but I believe is referring to tumors found in OB-GYN examinations of women. With PSA, most early tumors are found through PSA and are presumably (though not necessarily) smaller. Also, I don't know if there's an equivalent to Gleason scoring for OB-GYN tumors, but with PSA many of the early tumors are lower grade and slower growing.

So even though the 40 doublings probably applies because it's just math, I don't think we can conclude that PC is identified after 30 doublings, it could be much earlier, and HT, etc, can slow the doubling rate so those last 10 could last a long time. Slow them down to 1 or 2 years and that's 10 or 20 years lifetime.