Individual Cure Rate:

Your cancer and your cure rate are as unique as you are. RC Cancer Centers extensive research and experience has resulted in data metrics that can accurately predict outcomes.

Find out what you can expect in a cure rate with ProstRcision® because you have a lot of living left to do.

Reference this information when you need it by downloading our brochure.

Question 42:
What does cure rate mean?

Answer:
Cure rate refers to the percentage of all men treated for prostate cancer who have an undetectable PSA (PSA 0.2 ng/ml or lower) after 10 years. For example, a cure rate of 64% means that if 100 men are treated, 64 have PSA 0.2 ng/ml or lower after 10 years, which is the standard calculation time.

Question 43:
Why is 10 years following treatment the standard time to calculate cure rates for prostate cancer?

Answer:
This is the standard because almost all men who are not cured will have regrowth of their prostate cancer within 10 years of treatment or they will not achieve an undetectable PSA. Their PSA will fall to 0.2 ng/ml and later rise above 0.2 ng/ml. (See Figure 8). Recurrences are rare more than 10 years after treatment.30 Thus, the percentage of men with a PSA 0.2 ng/ml 10 years after treatment is the standard time to measure cure rate for any treatment. Cure rates are displayed in 10-year graphs.

Question 44:
What does a graph of a cure rate look like? (See Figure 11.)

Answer:
A graph showing the cure rate of men, ranging from early to advanced prostate cancer and treated at RC Cancer Centers with ProstRcision, is given in Figure 11. The vertical line on the left-hand side of the graph is the percentage of men free of cancer after treatment with ProstRcision. The horizontal line at the bottom of the graph is the time, in years, following treatment. The line at the top, which intermittently drops and shows 87% five years after treatment and 83% at 10 years, is the cure rate calculated with the Kaplan-Meier method. This means that for every 100 men treated with ProstRcision at RC Cancer Centers, 87 had PSA 0.2 ng/ml five years after treatment, but a few more men had recurrence after five years, which leaves 83 with PSA 0.2 ng/ml or lower 10 years after treatment. Also note that the curve flattens after eight years, which indicates few recurrences after this time. Thus, the overall 10-year cure rate is 83%. See Table 1.

Question 45:
What is a 10-year Individual Cure Rate or ICR?

Answer:
The overall cure rate curve shown in Figure 11 is for all men treated at RC Cancer Centers, regardless of their PSA or prostate biopsy pathology report findings. A 10-year ICR is the cure rate graph for only one of these men (an individual). For your own case of cancer, you do not want to look at the overall 10-year cure rate graph; instead, you want to see the cure rate graph for your particular case of prostate cancer. This is extremely important because prostate cancer varies from one man to another. Consequently, cure rates vary widely from one man to another, from 7% to 99%, all of which depends on the extent and aggressiveness of your prostate cancer.

Question 46:
Explain how you’d calculate my 10-year Individual Cure Rate. (See Figure 12.)

Answer:
We’d use our database, which is comprised of the 12,500 men we have treated with ProstRcision. For all 12,500 men, we receive a PSA every six months after treatment, and we have data on patients that goes back more than 25 years. We’d analyze the after-treatment PSA levels only of those men who match your pretreatment medical findings and calculate the percentage with PSA 0.2 ng/ml 10 years after ProstRcision. For greater accuracy, instead of using only PSA, Gleason score and stage, we’d match your six cancer findings mentioned in Question 1 with all previously treated men in our database who have similar medical findings. These cancer findings are:

1.) PSA 6.3
2.) Stage: T1c
3.) Gleason score: 6
4.) Cores with cancer 1 of 12
5.) Percent cancer in core: 10%
6.) Perineural invasion: No

Your 10-year ICR graph is shown in Figure 12. This means that if we treat you with ProstRcision, your chance of cure (PSA 0.2 ng/ml or lower 10 years later) will be 97%.

Question 47:
Can you give me another example of a 10-year ICR but with a more advanced case of prostate cancer? (See Figure 13.)

Answer:
Let’s assume your PSA is still 6.3
ng/ml and you have Stage T1c disease, but your prostate biopsy report shows you have Gleason score 4+3=7, involving three of 12 needle cores, 40–70% cancer in the three 4+3=7 cores and 60–70% Gleason grade 4 in the involved cores, plus perineural invasion. Again, we matched these prostate cancer findings to all previously treated men in the RC Cancer Centers database who had similar findings. The 10-year ICR for this particular case of prostate cancer would be 71%, as shown in Figure 13. As you can see from these two examples, a 10-year ICR can vary from one man to another and depends upon the extent and aggressiveness of his particular case of prostate cancer.

Question 48:
Why is a man’s 10-year ICR important?

Answer:
Your goal is to be cured of prostate cancer. A 10-year ICR provides you with a precise chance of being cured by a given doctor using a particular method of treatment. A 10-year ICR is the single most important piece of information you can get from your urologist or radiation oncologist.

Question 49:
What can I do with my 10-year ICR from RC Cancer Centers?

Answer:
Compare it with your 10-year ICR from other doctors. Ask your urologist for a copy of your 10-year ICR if he were to perform a radical prostatectomy on you. You can also explore the other eight treatment methods listed in Table 1 by asking other doctors for their 10-year ICR if they were to treat you. Then, you and your family can compare the 10-year ICRs from each doctor for your particular case of prostate cancer and make an objective decision about which treatment method and doctor gives you the best chance of cure. The 10-year ICR should determine the best treatment and doctor for your case of prostate cancer.

Question 50:
How can a man with prostate cancer get a 10-year ICR from RC Cancer Centers?

Answer:
Send a copy of your PSA, stage, prostate biopsy pathology report and other medical records to us. We will match your findings to men with similar medical records from our database and calculate your 10-year ICR. These 10-year ICR calculations will be done at no charge, and your 10-year ICR graph will be mailed to you so that you will have your precise chance of being cured by ProstRcision in writing. Contact Us for more information on how to receive your ICR.

Question 51:
Will the 10-year ICR for my case of prostate cancer vary with the 10 treatment methods listed in Table 1?

Answer:
Yes. Each of the 10 treatment methods will usually produce a different 10-year ICR for your particular case of prostate cancer. Additionally, the 10-year ICR will vary from doctor to doctor, even though he may perform the same treatment. For example, medical studies have documented that the cure rates of urologists who perform radical prostatectomy will vary from one doctor to another depending on their skill levels.31 The same will apply to doctors who perform seed implants, cryosurgery or IMRT only. This makes common sense. Ask yourself: Do all golfers have the same skill level? The obvious answer is no. There is an elite group of golfers, such as Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and others on the pro circuit who are far better than the average golfer in the United States. The same observation applies to doctors. This is why you should do your own research and focus on a doctor’s 10-year ICR for you.

Question 52:
Is there any difference among ICRs for the doctors at RC Cancer Centers who perform implants?

Answer:
No. Overall ICRs are calculated for each of the RC Cancer Centers doctors, and the results are compared. These results indicate that there is no difference among the ICRs of RC Cancer Centers doctors.

Question 53:
Can my urologist or radiation oncologist give me a 10-year ICR?

Answer:
Yes. He should be able to give you a 10-year ICR graph for your case of cancer if your doctor follows all his patients after treatment. A doctor must have a database to calculate a 10-year ICR for you. A database should have at least 2,000 men in it, and a substantial number of these men should have more than 10 years of follow-up. However, according to men we have treated, urologists and radiation oncologists who treat prostate cancer rarely follow their patients after treatment and do not have a database.

Question 54:
If urologists and radiation oncologists do not track or follow-up with the men they treat and do not have a database, how do they know if they are curing prostate cancer?

Answer:
Unfortunately, they don’t know. Most doctors basically tell men, “Trust me” and guess at a cure rate. This is something that you should be aware of and why you must carefully question doctors, using the four questions mentioned in Question 2.

Question 55:
Is this why doctors will not talk about their cure rates with men?

Answer:
Yes. Urologists and radiation oncologists talk almost exclusively about treatment — radical prostatectomy, beam radiation with IMRT, seed implantation, etc. They rarely talk about their own cure rates because they do not have a cancer database, which means they cannot calculate cure rates.

Question 56:
What is a prostate cancer database?

Answer:

A prostate cancer database is a collection of information about all men previously treated by a doctor for prostate cancer using any of the 10 treatment methods listed in Table 1. For example, at RC Cancer Centers, we have treated 12,000 men with prostate cancer using ProstRcision during the past 30 years. Before treatment, data is entered for each patient such as PSA, age, prostate biopsy pathology report findings, etc. The second set of information concerns the treatment technique, which includes the number of seeds, radiation dose from the seeds, as well as the subsequent IMRT beam radiation for each patient — all of this is also entered. Then, every six months after treatment, PSA data, urinary and rectal symptoms, and other information is entered into the computer for each of the 12,000 men. This information is entered year after year. We currently have 25 years of data. For more information, contact us to receive the RC Cancer Centers Computerized Database brochure.

Question 57:
How important is a doctor’s database to men with prostate cancer?

Answer:
A database is the foundation of any urologist’s or radiation oncologist’s practice. The importance of a database to a man with prostate cancer can be summarized by these questions:

  1. How does a doctor know how many men he cures of prostate cancer?Unless the doctor keeps up with all men he has treated and enters this information into a database, a doctor cannot calculate his own cure rates.
  2. How can a doctor improve his treatment technique and cure rates?With a database, a doctor can examine how he has treated men, compare cure rates and refine his technique accordingly. Without a database, the doctor cannot make any improvements.
  3. Since prostate cancer varies from patient to patient, how can a doctor vary his treatment according to the extent of a man’s cancer?Depending upon how aggressive and how extensive it is, using RC Cancer Centers database, treatment is tailored to each man’s disease. Unfortunately, a doctor cannot tailor treatment to a particular case without a database.
  4. How can a urologist or radiation oncologist calculate an ICR graph for men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer?The doctor cannot unless he has a database. A database is the key to the management of prostate cancer by any urologist or radiation oncologist.
Question 58:
My urologist does not follow his patients and does not have a database. He has recommended robotic radical
prostatectomy. What should I do?

Answer:
Men often face this situation. Again, ask yourself, “Why do I want to be treated?” Your answer is, “To be cured.” We will give you a graph of your 10-year Individual Cure Rate with ProstRcision. Ask your urologist for your 10-year ICR graph with radical prostatectomy. If he will not or cannot give you a 10-year ICR graph, you must decide whether you want a proven cure rate with ProstRcision for your own particular case of prostate cancer or if you want to blindly trust your urologist and let him perform surgery on you. Without a 10-year ICR graph, you do not know if radical prostatectomy is the best treatment for you, nor do you know how well your urologist cures prostate cancer with radical prostatectomy. Since you will typically get only one chance for cure, you should ask yourself this question, do I want to gamble with my ONE chance for cure or do I want a proven cure rate?