Cancer wreaks havoc on the lives of those it touches – and Australian dad Roy Princic knows this more than most.
For his family, the devastating disease is “in the genes”.
Prostate cancer killed his father, uncles and grandfather. But having years in which to mentally prepare for the moment it could strike him did not make his diagnosis at age 46 any less terrifying.
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“It was a shock to me because I was so young,” the now 61-year-old told 7NEWS.com.au.
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in Australia, afflicting one in every six to eight men.
Despite treatment, the progressive disease – metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) – kills about 3000 Aussie men each year and has just a 20 per cent five-year survival rate.
Princic is among those fighting mCRPC and is desperate to buy himself more time with the love of his life, Coral.
Doctors say an emerging treatment could do just that.
But it comes with a catch. He must travel seven hours for each treatment, and currently it is only available to people who qualify for compassionate access programs or can pay for it out of their own pocket – meaning thousands of men in Princic’s condition are missing out.
Princic has turned to his wife’s superannuation in a bid to keep himself alive but, as the bills begin to mount, he is worried about the debt he could leave behind.
Roy Princic just wants to buy more time with the love of his life, Coral. Credit: Supplied to 7NEWS.com.au‘Petrified’ of the path aheadPrincic always knew prostate cancer would be in his future, but the father-of-one never anticipated the disease would strike as soon as it did.
“I was sort of expecting it in time, maybe in my 60s,” he said.
When it struck in his 40s, specialists started him on medication and radiation but the pesky tumours kept coming back.
“I bounced from specialist to specialist and was given more meds,” he recalls.
“Mentally it was getting scary for me because it came back and then went well and came back again and I couldn’t control anything.
“I went to another specialist urologist and they said it’s not good.
“I got the report back from a PET scan and lit up like a Christmas tree. The tumours had spread to my back, down my spine, everywhere.”
Roy Princic lost his father, uncles and grandfather to prostate cancer. Credit: Supplied to 7NEWS.com.auHe faced the startling realisation his nightmare had come true. He was following the path he watched his father walk to his death.
“I’m a tough nut, but it brings a tear to my eye,” Princic said.
“He got sicker and sicker – he did the trials, had kidney issues, his cancer spread and he passed away.
“Now my kidneys are playing up.
“It’s so painful. I’m petrified … when you think about looking in that bed at your father, it’s like seeing yourself.”
Buying more timeAs Princic’s condition worsened, he wasn’t worried about himself – he just wanted more time with Coral.
Their friendship began when Princic was just seven years old. After Coral went through a divorce later in life, the couple soon fell in love and have been together for 40 years like “peas in a pod”.
“We’ve got to be together all the time. Now, it’s really hard,” Princic said.
The couple moved to Byabarra, a town about 40km inland from Port Macquarie, when Coral retired last year.
“I can’t work because of the pain. She said we can’t just sit here and watch the grass grow, so we moved,” Princic said.
But Princic continued to get sicker.
“About a month-and-a-half ago, the specialist said, ‘We’ve done everything we can. There’s nothing left to give you’,” he recalled.
“All they can help is with the treatment.”
Roy and his wife Coral on their wedding day. Credit: Supplied to 7NEWS.com.auThe treatment, Lutetium-PSMA, is a targeted form of radiotherapy for mCRPC.
“It gives you more time,” Princic explained, adding it could be anywhere from two months to 18 months.
To him, “any time is good”.
There’s just one problem: each treatment sets him back $5500 and requires a seven-hour journey to St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney on public transport.
The doctors want him to undergo treatment every three weeks instead of the usual six to have the best fighting chance – but that’s left Princic with money woes.
His severe pain has made working impossible in recent years and being too young to access his superannuation brings additional financial stress.
Princic’s doctor Louise Emmett says she managed to secure one free treatment for him. But having already borrowed against his home equity to afford his first session, he is fretting the cost of future doses.
While Princic will likely turn to Coral’s superannuation going forward, he is aware of the risk.
“Financially I have to be careful – it’s the money I’m taking off my wife,” he said.
“I can’t drain that to an endless number. I don’t want to leave her with a debt.
“We’ve moved to his place and don’t know anyone. It’s hit her hard because we’re best buds.”
Changing livesProstate cancer is the second most common cancer in Australian men – one in five patients will progress to metastatic disease.
Clinicians say lutetium could help fight the disease but the exorbitant costs mean thousands of men are missing out.
“It’s a really clever way of delivering radiation,” St Vincent’s Hospital director of theranostics and nuclear medicine Emmett said.
It involves a protein found on the surface of a cell on the prostate gland (PSMA) being chemically bound with lutetium – a radioactive substance that destroys the cancer cells in a targeted way.
This is then injected into the patient’s bloodstream, where the PSMA molecule takes the lutetium directly to the tumour site.
“Over a few hours, the cancer cells are really just pulling in all of this radiation so it concentrates where the cells are,” Emmett explained.
“The radiation stays in the cell and it damages the DNA and kills the cell.”
Emmett says the process could change the lives of thousands of men. But it comes with major barriers to access.
The emerging therapy is not yet publicly funded, which Emmett says is a key factor in its limited availability.
“People in my specialty are in Port Macquarie but because it’s not funded, it’s not available there,” she said.
“Roy didn’t have any other options – it was take the seven-hour train journey or nothing.
“By the time he had got to us, his kidneys had stopped working.
“If the funding is available, then that actually flows to more people in the industry going, ‘It’s worth educating myself so we can offer this locally’.”
Roy has to travel seven hours for treatment as clinical specialists fight to make the emerging treatment publicly funded and more widely accessible. Credit: Supplied to 7NEWS.com.auEmmett wants accessibility to the therapy to change and is among a group of leading clinicians advocating for it to be publicly funded.
The Medical Services Advisory Committee met recently to decide whether to publicly fund the treatment, which would allow equitable access to all men with advanced prostate cancer.
While the outcome is not expected for weeks, Emmett says it could fix the issue of inequitable access to the treatment.
“I want people not to turn up so late, I want them to have it earlier and I want it to be less difficult,” she said.
“Roy was able to afford his first dose so I met him, but what about all these people who don’t even give it an option because they don’t have that money?”
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