Just by looking at Ward Carson, you’d never know he was sick.
The 79-year-old Halifax man has lived with metastatic prostate cancer for the past 19 years.
“It hasn’t had a huge impact on the way I live my life,” he said. “My wife has said to me periodically, ‘I can’t believe you’re sick.'”
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But he is sick, and according to his latest prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, his PSA count, an indicator of prostate cancer, is rising.
“I think just in the last six to eight months it’s jumped a little bit, and now it’s jumping again,” Carson said.
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His enlarged prostate was first detected in 2003, and he subsequently underwent a prostatectomy, a procedure to remove part or all of the prostate gland. But the cancer cells stayed behind and spread, or metastasized. She has received hormone therapy, radiation and, most recently, drug treatment to prevent the cancer from spreading.
“And (these measures) have been working for the past few years, but they seem to have been waning,” he told Global News.
“Unfortunately, my cancer has metastasized to my spine and there is no procedure to operate and remove part of my spine.”
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“Eventually, the cancer cells learn to live under the influence of these treatments and start growing again,” said Dr. Ricardo Rendon, urologic oncologist and professor at Dalhousie University in the department of urology.
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Generally, when prostate cancer progresses through all the treatments, there’s not much more doctors can offer, he said.
That is, until now.
“We have a new treatment that is completely new and available to our patients who had nothing else to receive when their disease was advanced,” he said.
Pluvicto was approved in Canada last month and will allow doctors, for the first time, to target and treat specific cancer cells.
“So instead of being a shotgun approach to treating cancer, it’s a missile directly at the prostate cancer cells,” Rendon said.
This targeted approach will not only help patients live longer and with a much better quality of life, he said, but also produce fewer side effects that come with other treatments.
“It’s very difficult to talk to a patient who says we have nothing else to offer for the disease … So it’s amazing to be able to do that for these patients,” Rendon said.
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Only four percent of advanced prostate cancer cases are preventable, based on currently known risk factors, which is why advances in prostate cancer treatment are critical, Rendon said.
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“Since 2004, we’ve had six to eight new drugs approved, thanks to hundreds of clinical trials and many thousands of patients going through it,” he said. “In these 15 years, we have been able to almost triple the life expectancy of patients with advanced prostate cancer.”
The ongoing research is not lost on Carson, who understands that this new drug may be his last treatment option.
“Dr. Rendon hasn’t said ‘can we put you on trial or try drug B,’ so I’m not sure what else is out there for me,” Carson said.
“The idea that this radioactive drug will seek out the prostate cancer cells and stick to them and just irradiate them, I think it’s great and I hope it works.”
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