Good one you for doing what you can. There has definitely been advancements.
I heard in recent years they've come up with targeted radiation for the prostate which should preclude traditional surgery to remove it. I know one fella years ago now, who went through the surgery and said it was bloody horrible and wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy...well that scared the "crap" outta me. But this new treatment of injecting radiation "capsules or pellets" right into the prostate is far preferable to regular surgery, if I recall the pellets shrink the tumor. But as with any treatment there can be side effects.
CMc, I couldn't tell from your post if you were considering treatment for prostate cancer or that was just general discussion.
None the less, I'll share my thoughts on this.
In Post #17 I shared my bladder cancer ailment and recovery story. I guess I'll go a little bit into my bout with prostate cancer. [SPOILER ALERT: I'm now PSA=0 and Doc likes my prognosis.]
In Jan 2017 PSA levels were elevated enuff to consider proper treatment.
Doc provided me with a big selection of reading about the multiple treatment approaches.
I went online and followed some interesting forums of prostate cancer patients with the whole spectrum of treatments and results.
One forum from England was really helpful with some patients detailing every aspect of their various treatments.
They ranged from the quick and successful Treat and Release [sort of describes my experience] to people posting for multiple years of their experiences [usually pretty bad].
For this quick message I'll just say that I sort of put the various available approaches into categories of:
* NO WAY!
* Sounds bad
* Can't tell, need more info
* That seems OK
* I hope that would work that well for me.
* BINGO!
The NO WAYs outnumbered the BINGOs.
I'll try to re-locate some of those sites if anybody is interested.
Anyway, your mention the
injecting radiation "capsules or pellets" approach. [I had put that into the
* Sounds bad pile.]
Just yesterday afternoon I first met a 74 yo gentleman who shared that he had treatment by External Beam Radiation
and Radio Implants.
His take was that the EBR didn't kill the
cancer but the Implants were killing
him.
I am going to see him later in the week in my gym. He used to be a fitness trainer and I'm going to have him set up a program for me. He has no shyness about sharing his experience, so I'll follow up on what he has to offer...