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• Introduction
• Table of Cure Rates
• Personal Research
• Evaluating Your Cancer
• Biopsy Pathology Report
• Curing Prostate Cancer
• Individual Cure Rate
• ProstRcision
• Radical Prostatectomy
• ProstRcision vs. Radical Prostectomy
• Definition of Cure
• Comparing Treatments
• Hormones
• Treatment Effects
• Recurrence
• Summary
• References
• View All Questions

Recurrence:

Recurrence of cancer is a serious consideration. The physicians at Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia carefully research and track outcomes; and emphasize that, with rare exceptions, a man usually gets only one chance to be cured of prostate cancer.  Find out what researchers learned from surveying men with early prostate cancer.

Question 133:
The overall cure rate of ProstRcision is 83%, which means 17% are not cured. Why are they not cured?

Answer:
When we find a man with recurrent prostate cancer after ProstRcision (which means that his PSA did not fall to 0.2 ng/ml or eventually, his PSA rose above 0.2 ng/ml), we then determine where the cancer may be regrowing. Repeat tests are conducted, including bone scan, CAT scan and rebiopsying the prostate. We rarely find regrowth of cancer in the prostate. The recurrence rate in the prostate is less than 1%. Thus, we almost always destroy the cancer inside the prostate and microscopic capsule penetration with ProstRcision. Consequently, the most common reason we fail to cure men is because their cancer had spread elsewhere in their body before treatment and this spread was not detectable with tests before they received ProstRcision.

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Question 134:
What do you do for men who develop recurrence of prostate cancer after ProstRcision?

Answer:
In the rare patient in whom we have found recurrence inside the prostate, men have been considered for salvage treatment by either radical prostatectomy⁴⁷ or cryosurgery.^56,57 Only one patient at Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia has ever had a salvage radical prostatectomy. The cause for recurrence in almost all men after ProstRcision is because cancer spread before treatment with ProstRcision to other areas in the body, such as bone, lymph nodes or other places. If the PSA is rising very slowly, we just observe these men. Eventually, men are treated with hormones. Hormones do not cure prostate cancer but can typically suppress the cancer growth for many years.

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Question 135:
Is Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia the only treatment facility where ProstRcision is performed? If this is correct, why is ProstRcision not performed at other places?

Answer:
Yes, we are the only group in the United States that treats men with ProstRcision. However, we do know of other doctors who tried this approach and have had to stop using this treatment due to severe complications. Doctors have tried this method at the University of Missouri,⁷² in Copenhagen⁷³ and in Staten Island, New York,⁷⁴ but have since stopped using this technique because 3–10% of men developed fistulas requiring colostomies. The reasons these doctors stopped seed implant followed by beam radiation is because they were administering this technique differently than we do at Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia. In sharp contrast, our rate of developing fistulas (see Question 129) is one of the lowest in the United States using any treatment method. This program, ProstRcision, is successful at Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia because of the continuous research and study over the past 30 years. Consequently, men who are treated by our program receive the benefit of all the knowledge that has been accumulated at Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia on these previous 13,000 men.