Tag: Recurrence

Watch “Biochemical Recurrence Post-radical Prostatectomy” on YouTube

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer3 Comments

I stumbled across this presentation in my YouTube feed and even though it’s about 10 years old, it contains a lot of good information for those with an increasing PSA after radical prostatectomy.

It gets into:

  • Biochemical Recurrence definition
  • Value of regular vs. ultra PSA tests
  • Survival
  • Imaging (again, dated because this is 10 years old)
  • Identifying good candidates for salvage therapy
  • Salvage RT toxicities and success rates

The video is about 52 minutes long, and the presenter shares information in an understandable way for us patients.

Dr. Kwon Video – Part 2

On By DanIn imaging, Prostate Cancer, Recurrence, Treatment6 Comments

Here’s the second part of Dr. Kwon’s video. Like the first video, it’s very informative (perhaps even more so, at least for me).

Even though I had seen similar statistics before, one of the kickers for me is that only 33% of recurrent cancer is found in the prostate bed (local); 45% will be metastatic; and 22% will be both local and metastatic. As Dr. Kwon rightly points out, knowing where the cancer is located will guide your treatment decisions, and that’s why I have been so reluctant to blindly step into salvage radiation therapy without having first identified the location of the cancer. Why risk the possible toxic side effects of radiation if you’re not radiating in the correct location?

In my previous post, I mentioned that Dr. Kwon was a pioneer in dealing with oligometastatic prostate cancer. At the beginning, many in the profession dismissed his work out of hand (I’ll admit I was skeptical, too), but it seems that over the last 10 years, his work has gained the respect of others and is supported by further research.

In any case, this video is 31 minutes long and I encourage you to watch it.