The key to curing any type of cancer is to treat it BEFORE it spreads!
As a surgeon I have to often times dissuade patients from choosing surgery. You think I’m kidding don’t you? Surgeons do it all the time. Radiation therapists also tell some patients that radiation may not be the best option for them. That I know is even harder to believe….just kidding. (It’s a surgeon-radiation therapist thing.)
Many patients and their family think that if you take the prostate out you are cured. When I speak of needing to follow the PSA every three months after a radical prostatectomy, I am often asked why that is necessary. PSA is variable in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, but very reliable in terms of determining if the cancer has returned after treatment.
A PSA should go to negligible, usually something like .02 and stay there. If a PSA rises then that might indicate recurrence.
How does this happen?
- For surgery it happens because there was…
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