Posted by C S Loh on June 14, 1999 at 11:48:53:
In Reply to: Re: Ca Prostate posted by CLDing on June 14, 1999 at 10:55:58:
I accept your arguements but would suggest that it may be too simplistic to just clump all cancers into either tigers or pussy cats. The age of the patient is just as important. Pussy cats are harmless in fairly elderly patients as the Scandinavian experience taught us but very long term data on pussy cats in very young patients are still largely lacking. Many believe that given time, pussy cats can still kill. The younger the paitents, the more aggressive I am inclined to be even with very low grade tumours.
Arguably, a lot of RRP for very high grade tumours are really for "local control" and any true organ confinement encountered then come as bonus!
Applying these arguements on this patient, given similar PSA level and metastatic screen, he may fair better with RRP if the Gleason score is higher than 3+3. Any disagreement?