Any comfort about prostate cancer?
My dad was just diagnosed with stage 7 prostate cancer this weekend. I would like for some people to reply with comfort, success stories, tragic stories, etc. Please broaden my horizon of thinking that there's only one way out of this. I'm only 19 years old and he's 51. He still has two little girls to graduate high school and I'm frightened that he won't be around. Please offer stories and/or comfort.
Cancer - 5 Answers
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1 :
I'm really sorry for what you're going through, just have faith in God he will give you the strenght you need. God Bless you and everything will be ok!
2 :
I dont know what stage 7 prostate cancer is but this I will tell you, Prostate cancer has the highest survival rate of all cancers. He is pretty young to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just make sure he follows the doctors orders and have faith. Good luck.
3 :
Yeah, my grandad has had it for 9 years. He is still going strong! They have offered to cure it via removing his prostate, but he just opts for the injection each coupple of months instead.
4 :
I have worked in a Urologists office for about 3 years now. We have many patients that have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. There are many treatment options out there, from surgery (robotic prostaectomy) to hormone treatment (radiation treatment). Think positive, your father is probably feeling down about things himself right now, i would try to stay as positive as possible. especially for your younger sisters. To determine a Gleason score the biopsied tissue samples are run through a microscope to determine where the cancer is the most prominent (the primary grade) and then where it's next most prominent (the secondary grade). the two grades are then added together to get the final gleason grade. A score of 7 indicates that the cancer is moderately aggressive. check out the website attatched it is very informative.
5 :
Staging If the biopsy shows that you have cancer, your doctor needs to learn the extent (stage) of the disease to help you choose the best treatment. Staging is a careful attempt to find out whether the tumor has invaded nearby tissues, whether the cancer has spread and, if so, to what parts of the body. Some men may need tests that make pictures of the body: Bone scan: The doctor injects a small amount of a radioactive substance into a blood vessel. It travels through the bloodstream and collects in the bones. A machine called a scanner detects and measures the radiation. The scanner makes pictures of the bones on a computer screen or on film. The pictures may show cancer that has spread to the bones. CT scan: An x-ray machine linked to a computer takes a series of detailed pictures of your pelvis or other parts of the body. Doctors use CT scans to look for prostate cancer that has spread to lymph nodes and other areas. You may receive contrast material by injection into a blood vessel in your arm or hand, or by enema. The contrast material makes abnormal areas easier to see. MRI: A strong magnet linked to a computer is used to make detailed pictures of areas inside your body. The doctor can view these pictures on a monitor and can print them on film. An MRI can show whether cancer has spread to lymph nodes or other areas. Sometimes contrast material makes abnormal areas show up more clearly on the picture. When prostate cancer spreads, it's often found in nearby lymph nodes. If cancer has reached these nodes, it also may have spread to other lymph nodes, the bones, or other organs. When cancer spreads from its original place to another part of the body, the new tumor has the same kind of abnormal cells and the same name as the primary tumor. For example, if prostate cancer spreads to bones, the cancer cells in the bones are actually prostate cancer cells. The disease is metastatic prostate cancer, not bone cancer. For that reason, it's treated as prostate cancer, not bone cancer. Doctors call the new tumor "distant" or metastatic disease. These are the stages of prostate cancer: Stage I: The cancer can't be felt during a digital rectal exam, and it can't be seen on a sonogram. It's found by chance when surgery is done for another reason, usually for BPH. The cancer is only in the prostate. The grade is G1, or the Gleason score is no higher than 4. Stage II: The tumor is more advanced or a higher grade than Stage I, but the tumor doesn't extend beyond the prostate. It may be felt during a digital rectal exam, or it may be seen on a sonogram. Stage III: The tumor extends beyond the prostate. The tumor may have invaded the seminal vesicles, but cancer cells haven't spread to the lymph nodes. Stage IV: The tumor may have invaded the bladder, rectum, or nearby structures (beyond the seminal vesicles). It may have spread to the lymph nodes, bones, or to other parts of the body. I only found 4 stages, God Bless and good luck.
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