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Patient Research

Why should a patient do his own research?

Question 1:
My name is John Doe and I am 64 years old. I had a routine physical examination and am in excellent health except my internist found my PSA to be 6.3 ng/ml. He sent me to a urologist who biopsied my prostate gland and a few days later told me I have stage T1c prostate cancer. He also told me that one of the twelve biopsy needle cores showed Gleason score 6 cancer involving 10% of the needle with no perineural invasion. I do not know what any of this means. All my wife and I know is that I have cancer and we are very scared. My urologist then wanted to schedule me for a robotic radical prostatectomy. I saw another urologist for a second opinion and he recommended freezing my prostate gland by cryosurgery. I then saw two different radiation doctors. One said the best treatment for me would be IMRT accelerator radiation and the other said that seed implant would be the best treatment. I then saw a fifth doctor who said I could be treated by any method and that I could choose my own treatment. None of these doctors said anything about cure of my prostate cancer but talked only about treatment. After seeing all these doctors, I am now both confused and scared. I don’t know anything about prostate cancer or how to decide about treatment. All I want is to be cured of this cancer with the least problems.

Answer:
Your experience is fairly typical of what men find when they are newly diagnosed with prostate cancer. The single most important thing you and your wife should do is perform your own personal research on prostate cancer and above all else, focus on cure of your disease. There are three important reasons why you should do this:

  1. You will usually get only one chance to be cured of prostate cancer. Some men can be salvaged after recurrence, but most cannot. Therefore you need to be certain that the treatment method and the doctor is the right choice for you.

  2. Most, but not all, doctors will recommend the treatment that they themselves perform. Urologists, who are surgeons, typically recommend a radical prostatectomy and radiation doctors will recommend some type of irradiation. Unfortunately, it’s like buying a car. When you go to Chevrolet dealership, you will be told about Chevrolets and only Toyotas will be sold at a Toyota dealership. Thus, the treatment recommended by your doctor may not be best for your particular case of prostate cancer.

  3. Doctors usually talk only about treatment of prostate cancer but rarely about how well they cure this disease. Any doctor can treat you but the real question is can your doctor cure you.

Cure Crossroads

These are the basic reasons why you should perform your own personal research with a focus on cure and then decide on treatment. This website will educate you about prostate cancer but more importantly will empower you with a decision-making process enabling you to determine treatment based on cure rates of your own case of cancer.

Question 2:
How can I perform my own research? I am not a doctor.

Answer:
You do not have to be a doctor to understand prostate cancer and learn about cure. It is easy. Here are things you can do:

(a) When speaking to your urologist or radiation oncologist, ALWAYS ask these four key questions:

  1. How many men with prostate cancer have you treated yourself?

  2. How many of these men have PSA 0.2 ng/ml ten years after treatment?

  3. Do you have a computerized database on all men you have treated?

  4. If you were to treat my particular case of prostate cancer, using your database, what is my 10-year Individual Cure Rate?

(b) Get a second opinion from both urologists and radiation oncologists.

(c) Enter “prostate cancer” in the internet search engine for Google, Yahoo or other engines.

(d) Speak with friends and neighbors who have been previously treated for prostate cancer.

(e) Read medical research papers from peer-reviewed medical journals.

(f) Study these questions and answers.