Treatment for advanced aggressive prostate cancer

I have a friend who just turned 80. One recent morning at the neighborhood café, he looked at me seriously and said: “When you get to be our age, we all have issues.” (I’m 13 years younger than him but didn’t demur.) He’s right, of course. Still, finding out I had cancer felt like a brick to the head. Since my diagnosis in 2018, I’ve noticed the progression, the changes. How the world opened up in a new way once I realized a part of me is actively seeking my demise. The boundaries of skin that had felt so solid, so protective, began to feel porous. It was fall and leaves were peeling off the aspens on the mountains in sheets. I felt like one of those leaves. The issue we may talk about the least is the end-of-season, cold-air slide out of life.

I’ve tried several treatments over the past five years, but the cancer hasn’t successfully responded to any of them. Earlier this year, a course of immunotherapy failed, leaving me worse off as tumors suddenly spread, leading to life-threatening complications that required weeks in the hospital. I’m now pursuing a series of theranostic radioligand therapies (including LU-177) at a clinic in Austria. While doctors there have a decade of experience with these therapies, the FDA just authorized their use in the US last year, and they aren’t available for patients like me. Over the past two months, I’ve received two treatments in Austria, and the results have been very promising: my PSA has dropped from a high of 260 to 1.5. The doctor there even mentioned the possibility of remission, a word no one else has used. While this is good news to be celebrated, a third treatment has been scheduled. This to be followed by a scan checking how effective the treatments have been. And likely more will be required.

The cost of each radioligand treatment is approximately $20,000, and I may need as many as six treatments over the next year just to hold winter at bay. Knowing we all have issues, I realize this is a big ask. If I’m fortunate, spring will follow, when I’ll feel the dew on the grass and wake up, whether to sun or rain, knowing those cells run amok are only a small piece of me and appreciating the love and fullness of one day more. If you are moved to make a donation, thank you. Every dollar raised will go directly to the costs associated with obtaining radioligand therapy in Austria. —Keith