hi alan - i think it can best be said that once prostate cancer goes
active - it will either kill you and you kill it.

i use those choice of words because it is proven that men have pca cells
in their body at a lot earlier age and not have developed prostate
cancer.  20% of all men age 50 have pca cells, but 100% of those do not
have pca.  

once the pca becomes active, it doesn't give up.  this is why the
overall odds are so low in beating it.  it is normally a slow growing
cancer and we opt for a treatment when it becomes active.  either we cut
it out or burn it up, the chances are the same it will recur in 5 years
is 50%.  they don't use the word remission.  they use the word survivor.  

you asked the question, "does prostate cancer ever go into remission."
my vote would have to be "no".

others might see it differently.

~ curtis

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

Allen,
You might google; majidali.com/remissio.htm and read a different few of
cancer remission.

Ron S

Good question!

I would tend to agree with Curtis on this one, but I know that some here are
on chemotherapy.  Isn't the goal of the chemo to stop the spread of the
cancer, if not to destroy it completely?  Wouldn't a successful chemotherapy
treatment qualify as "remission"?

Just my 2 cents.

Have a good weekend all.

I think the term "remission" might one day go the way of other medical terms
like "consumption" and "lunacy".  Technically, it's just an abatement of
pain or of the disease itself.  But I believe we are all advancing toward
looking beyond the symptomatic nature of "remission", especially in the case
of PCa.

There are specific processes that can occur (or "can maybe occur" -- no one
really knows for sure).

1.  Every last cancer cell can be removed from the body during an operation.
While no one knows for sure that this has occurred, at least not for 15
years after the surgery, but it is possible.  It's a cure, not a remission.

2.  Cells can self-destruct due to radiation.  Keep in mind that cells are
supposed to die and cancer cells have forgotten that.  Every one of 100
Trillion healthy cells in your body have the ability to make absolute
replicas of themselves and they do this all day, every day.  The all have
within coded  instructions (DNA) on how often this is to occur and when they
are to die.  Millions of cells die in your body every day and the living
cells reproduce millions a day.  The problem with cancer cells is that they
have forgotten how to die.  Something happened in the DNA sequencing and
they just keep living and multiplying.  And they multiply exact replicas of
themselves, i.e., more cells that do not die.  When radiation is introduced
in sufficient quantities, all cells self-destruct.  Cancer cells, if they
self destruct, cannot reproduce more cancer cells.  There are still 100
Trillion healthy cells (or maybe 999,990,000,000) left after radiation, so
they reproduce and replaced damaged cells.  If the radiation gets all of the
cancer cells, it's a cure.  However, the "cure" can kill or cause serious
physical damage.  Because radiation can also introduce a new DNA variant
that stops good cells from living long enough to do their job right.  Or,
ironically, can cause other cells to forget how to die.  If the radiation
doesn't get all the cells, those that didn't die will eventually grow in
number to the point where they can be detected.

2.  A PCa cell can die of starvation.   If you don't feed a cancer cell,
sometimes it dies.  That's the whole idea behind HT.  If they all died, it
is a cure, but that almost never happens.  There are almost always cells
that are not dependent on hormones and they will continue to live and
subdivide.  Maybe more slowly than dependent cells, but just as sure.

3.  A PCa cell can go dormant due to starvation.  Again, if you don't feed
it, it will not grow.  Unfortunately, it may not die.  So, when hormones are
reintroduced to the body, they wake up and eat.  That's a risk of
intermittent hormone treatment.

4.  A PCa cell can starve and morph.  If all the meat is gone, the cell can
become a herbivore (this is an analogy for those in Rio Linda).  If there is
no testosterone available some cells will consume other proteins found in
the body, like estrogen.  I don't think they know for certain if these are
just cells who prefer other proteins, or if they morph, or if they are, to
follow the analogy, omnivorous.

5.  The body's immune system can sometimes handle a small amount of PCa
cells.  All immune systems are different and most consider a PCa cell to be
just another cell, not realizing that the DNA has been altered.  The immune
system just sees a cell that is subdividing like all the other cells; so why
kill it?  But, some do pick up on the fact that a cell isn't supposed to
live that long or maybe it stinks.  No one knows why, but for some reason,
some immune systems do have an effect on PCa.  The healthier immune system
the better.  This is the premise of virus testing.  If you attach a known
virus to a PCa cell and reintroduce it to the body, the immune system will
attack the virus and hopefully anything connected to the virus like the
attached PCa cell and every other cell that looks like a PCa cell.

There may be more than five situations, and certainly variations on a theme,
e.g., cryo.  But these are the ones I've read about.

Are any of these remissions?  Some can cause the pain to leave, the mets to
shrink, the PSA to go down, and/or the PCa cells to diminish or disappear.
It depends on the definition you use.

Any cancer can go into remission or even disappear, but it isn't
something that happens very often with prostate cancer.

On the other hand, many prostate cancers grow very slowly and may never
bother the patient during his lifetime.  Whether or not this is likely
has to be evaluated on a case to case basis by an expert.

Thanks to all who replied.  Some very informative answers.
Allan