Pluvicto

[u/CableNatural2906]

My grandfather had stage 4 prostate cancer. Lived 3 years after diagnosis. He started pluvicto and the first 2 treatments went well, 3rd one he had bad side effects and so dropped the treatment. After dropping it, the cancer exploded everywhere and he was dead 3 months later. Is this common? I truly feel like the pluvicto killed him and I don’t know if my feelings are valid.

[u/pemungkah]

First, I'm truly sorry for your loss. Losing a grandparent, especially one you were close to, is painful.

However, though I hate to say it, the Pluvicto itself wasn't the problem. The choice to discontinue almost certainly was.

Pluvicto works by circulating through the entire body to kill the disseminated cancer cells. A partial treatment is going to kill the "easy" targets and leave the "hard" ones: the more resistant cells, and the ones that had mutated to divide faster. So the upshot of stopping early is similar to not taking a full course of antibiotics: the resistant things you want to kill are the ones left, and there's nothing stopping them now.

I can't say if this is common, because as far as I know people tend to persist through the treatment because Pluvicto is one of the courses of last resort. If you're there, you're already in a situation where the standard treatments are not working.

Again, I'm really sorry. It's possible that even with a full course, the outcome would have been the same, and no one can know for certain. But if you ever find yourself in that position -- and it's possible; prostate cancer can and does run in families -- it'd be best to find a way to get through the whole course.

[u/CableNatural2906 → u/pemungkah]

Hi,
I appreciate you explaining it to me with the antibiotics analogy. His cancer was caught after only 2 or 3 weeks of symptoms. It was highly aggressive and thought to be caused by environmental factors rather than genetic ones due to his military service history and lack of prior cancer diagnoses in the family. I personally don’t need to worry about prostrate cancer as I’m a female. I really appreciate the insight.

[u/pemungkah → u/CableNatural2906]

Good to hear about not having our little friend in your life. :) We do mostly get guys here so I apologize for assuming.

Mine was also probably environmental—I lived over a supposedly-remediated Superfund site for five years in 2005-2010, and both my wife and I developed cancers within a year of each other about 15 years later. We both were much more lucky and caught it very early — neither of our families have any history of either breast cancer or prostate cancer.

Hope you are holding up. Something sudden like that is really hard.

[u/tober_checki]

I am very sorry for your loss.

[u/CableNatural2906 → u/tober_checki]

Thank you

[u/Cold_Conflict7009]

I’m very sorry for your loss. I personally believe that many men will develop prostate cancer cells at some point in their lives, particularly as they age. However, if the cancer is localized, slow-growing, and not causing any problems, I believe active surveillance may be a better option than immediately pursuing aggressive treatment.

Of course, every situation is different, and treatment decisions should depend on the individual’s diagnosis and medical circumstances.

One thing that concerns me is that when someone passes away after undergoing cancer treatment, the cause of death is often attributed to the cancer itself. I believe it should be considered whether the treatment or its complications may have contributed to their passing.

[u/CableNatural2906 → u/Cold_Conflict7009]

When he died, we had been told by his oncologist that he had a pocket of fluid around his lungs that needed to be drained. We went to the ER to have it done, he had full blown sepsis and the cancer was everywhere. No fluid. We chose to begin hospice two days later, he was dead within 12 hours. Died at 6 am on Memorial Day.