John T- thanks appreciate your complements and always like your incite on PCa issues
Newporter- thanks too, I will try to keep my reply short, one could post plenty on such subject matter and controversies
Basically, PCa can be treated with various drugs even from day one, Dr. Premoli puts Argentinians on estradiol patches, with much success, lower costs, little to no side effects and avoids the Lupron, casodex and other more expensive options. He has published his results, funny how USA journals were not interested in even mentioning his works over a number of years (bias???). Then couple other cases that went different routes, like Dr. Fred Lee went onto emcyt (estramustine) for his uncurable scenario and still living yr. 30+ now and like 85? or so years old (he invented cryo therapy and is the master at color doppler sonagraphy, a smart cookie I would think! DES was used from the 1940's and even though used for decades as the only drug for PCa and some men had incredible results (not mentioned much), the few that got blood clots are the whole focus of the new thinking (reporting), some got clots from using to much back then 5-mg and no screening for high risk clotters and no blood thinner (coumadin-warfarin) or aspirin used....no wonder some had issues. Journal of Urology article from Nov. 2003 proven that 1-mg is safe and effective and works also on hrpca.
The AR (androgen receptor) for PCa, can basically change or morph over time and render some drugs ineffective, but depending upon timings and drug used....could be effected again by like casodex (later) or another flutamide might work, where casodex had failed....this is a jungle with plenty of unknowns. Sometimes patients just have to try an agent and see if and how long it works, then closely monitoring, find another agent and hopefully not let your psa get to huge mets level situations (for atleast as long as you might be able to effect this). As you might have recently seen even avodart or proscar and effect not only psa level, but PCa itself to some degree. Dr. Leibowitz puts patients on proscar after doing ADT3 for like 13 months, for maintenance....so how good is it? I have one example I know of a man living in my area: Psa 10 or 11, 2 positive biopsies found (2+3)=5 back in 1995-6, he decided to do no invasive protocol, did the Leibowitz concept of ADT3 for 13 months, quit and stayed on proscar. He has been rebiopsied 3 times over all these years and could still do any treatment for his PCa, but his recent color doppler biopsies by Dr. Fred Lee....found NO PCa even in the suspecious red areas found....now he doesn't say he is cured, but his results are fabulous. Wonder how many docs would mention for lower risk patients, that this is a possible choice, might be risky...but some men looking for normalcy as long as possible might take this protocol...but never knew it was possible.
Good info on drugs are www.hrpca.org for others to look over. I say question everything and look at everything and consider everything and make your choices or choose to do nothing is still your choice. Yes, I consult with my onco-doc and have been seeing him for 1 hour office visits every month now for well over 1 year now and go to his PCa seminar group meets and he is very up front with me and even hands me some Journal articles on some interesting or new things.
Post Edited (zufus) : 1/7/2012 3:40:55 PM (GMT-7)