Hello My Father Is 99 Years Old And Was Diagnosed

Posted on Fri, 6 Sep 2019

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Fri, 6 Sep 2019 Answered on

Last reviewed on

Question : Hello
My father is 99 years old and was diagnosed in 2004 with local Prostate cancer and since then he was on lupron then zoladex injections every 3 months,casodex was added in 2016. The last 15 months his psa climbed from 23 all the way to 171, his doctor suggested to go for another line of hormone treatment either zytiga or xtandi and looking to there side affects i think xtandi has less harm on his health but giving to the circumstances of hos major health i have concerns about a second line of treatment, my father has heart disease and a border line of renal functions and he has been bed ridden since 2017 due to a broken hip and he has been in oxygen support during sleep time since 2018. Is going for a second line of hormonal therapy at his age and condition the right choice? If we decided not to go for further treatment what are his outcomes and life expectancy incase of his cancer, and if we decide to go for a second line of therapy which is the better choice between xtandi and zytiga and can it be a reduced dose for an example one pill every other day or so? I forgot to mention that father is asymptomatic in his current case.
Kindly advise
Thank you
Yaqoub

Answered by Dr. Dr. Esmeralda Sera (16 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Prostat cancer

Detailed Answer:
Hello and thank you for asking

Both of decisions in may opinion are right.Due to his age and comorbidity in case of doing nothing I don’t think that his cancer will aggravate soon.

In other hand in general practice second line treatment hormone therapy doesn’t cause a lot of side effects.But you can start him xtandi and if in the few days hi have some side effects than you have the option to doing nothing.

Kind regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Nagamani Ng