had my appointment with the doctor.  i was able to talk with him for
almost an hour and there are some very interesting facts that were
brought out.

here's some of them.

on surgery treatment options.  if you read dr. walsh's book and look at
the illustrations, it appears that the prostate itself is disconnected
and then removed.  but it's not removed as a unit, but rather in chunks
or sections.  (i always wondered how they could pull a whole prostate
out out of one of those little incisions of an LRP)  this is why
prostate cells could be left behind as they are removing the gland and
later cause the psa to rise.  

on radiation treatment

seeds - each seed has its own source of  radiation and will generate a
different spread pattern as a group.  so there is a variance each time
and doesn't apply the same as to a central beam point such as 3-D.  the
more seeds that are deposited in one area will produce a more
concentrated radiation of the prostate at that location.

each seeding operation has two variables.
1. how many seeds are used
2. placement of those seeds used.

i couldn't get much detail information on seeding that i wanted, other
than if two men got seeding at the same time with the same stage,
gleason, and pca development, there would be different outcomes.  here's
the reason.  it depends of where the pca develops inside the prostate.
an example of this could be as follows........one may have more pca
developing near the erectile nerves, so as a result, more seeds are used
resulting in more radiation being applied in the pca which results to
more radiation exposure to the erectile nerves which could lead to ED
problems of the one person while the other one might have minimum
effects because his pca was developed further away from the erectile
nerves.  

on the other types of radiation.

i knew part of this on radiation in general.  i will explain my part
first and then add what takes place in radiating the prostate.

in the military service -  radiation danger, one of the demonstrations
we would show to the newbies about being around radars and the exposure
to their radiation, was to tie a string on a stick and the other end to
a hot dog.  we would put the hot dog in front of the radar dish for a
few minutes.  after removing the hot dog, we would point out that the
outside of the hot dog has not changed it's appearance.  it still looks
raw as when we placed it in front of the radiation unit.  but when we
cut the hot dog into two places lengthwise.  it was black and charred on
the inside in the middle.  the purpose of this demonstration was to show
how radiation can hurt you while you still like ok on the outside.

now, applying radiation to the prostate gland as a treatment does much
like this except it is not as powerful.  the outside of the prostate
gland will still have the feel and texture of the prostate gland, while
the inside of the prostate will have a definite demarcating line.
inside this line the tissue will appear to be thicker and feel like
rubber or leather and nothing like the prostate tissue as it was before.  

this is due to the way the body responds to radiation of ANY kind and
how the body changes cell structure as a result of exposure to
radiation.  if a person were to get even more radiation, the cell
structure would respond and change even more.

because the damage is done to the inside might explain why men who get
radiated have irritation for the urethra and urinating problems as they
are getting the radiation sessions.  

also, some of the colon wall gets radiated too and turns into a similar
rubbery or leather like tissue.  this causes that area to loss it's
function of what's the colon is designed to do - remove the water from
the feces - hence - diarrhea.  also, since the tissue doesn't stretch
like it did, can produce pain as the food passes through it in that
area.  

in fact, there has been reports of some patients who were in so much
pain as a result of the radiation damage to the colon area, they wanted
the colon section removed.

as to the numbers on 50% recurrence of prostate cancer in 3 years,  80%
recurrence in 5 years and 99% recurrence in 10 years.  this is all in
reference to the cases where recurrence of prostate cancer takes place
and not of the whole group of prostate cancer patients.  the purpose of
the numbers was to do with showing that if a person was to have
recurrence of prostate cancer, then this is the odds of when it could
develop after treatment.

hope this help explain why each treatment is different unto itself.

~ 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."
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