It looks like de-bulking or cytoreduction with radiation may be beneficial:

Is There Benefit of Radiation Therapy for Primary Tumor in the Treatment of Patients With Metastatic Prostate Cancer?


If you can't get it covered in Canada, you might consider getting it done in the US. There's a clinical trial of using SBRT to do it in just 5 treatments. That could save you a lot of money over paying for 40 treatments of IMRT. Here's the contact info:

/clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02206724

I notice they're excluding guys who have had chemo, but I'd call them anyway - they may be willing to take you on outside of the study, and San Diego is a nice place to visit this time of year.

- Allen

A saying in Hawaii is "When in pain, take a plane ". Tho Queen's Medical cCenter has a top notch breast cancer unit

Hey Travling_Guy -

Welcome to the club, our stats are pretty similar. I opted to have my prostate and a couple of nodes radiated back in September at the suggestion of my radonc. He felt that it offered a survival benefit and could prolong HT by getting rid of the main tumor. He also said that there is often a synergy between HT and RT, one helps the other to work better. My uro was against it, he said it was too risky and my first medonc wasn't too keen on it either. I did my research found articles like the one Tall Allen posted. It seemed to make sense, I also read in Snuffy Meyers HT book that in a study at MD Anderson they found that 50% of the mutations that cause HT to fail originated in the prostate - see page 50-51. This offered further proof to me that it would be a good idea to get rid of the prostate. My radonc felt it was less risky to do it through IMRT than through surgery.

So I had 45 sessions of IMRT, and had very little SE's, some fatigue in weeks 5-7 and some burning, frequency and urgency. Now that I'm a couple months past IMRT only some frequency and urgency remain, I am very pleased and would do it again in a heart beat.

Lately there have also been some articles talking about the Abscopal Effect, where radiation causes PCa to die and be gobbled up by your immune system - this "turns on" your immune system to seek more PCa cells and even non radiated PCa is attacked by your immune system. Google Abscopal Effect for Prostate Cancer and you'll see.

Like you I am young, 56, and feel that I need to be aggressive in treating my G9 PCa. I'm currently on triple HT (Lupron, Casodex, Avodart), take metformin and simvastatin, and get an Xgeva shot every month for bone health and to prevent further mets.

So far so good, PSA is holding at 0.1 (that's as low as Quest goes) and my nodes have shrunk considerably, no new bone mets and existing mets are showing signs of healing.

I also take calcium, vitamin D, Zyflamend, Soy Isoflavones, Krill Oil, Multiple Vitamin, eat a Mediterranean diet and exercise daily. Feel pretty good overall hope it lasts. Good luck in you decision.

Ed

Lupron Jim,

Thanks for the Crestor info, I'll discuss the Crestor with my docs, they all are open to suggestions (otherwise they get cut from the team).

Ed