Kia ora Maxt,
Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear about your father’s recent diagnosis.
Prostate cancer is diagnosed by the biopsy but the scan will show just where the prostate cancer is. If it is still only inside the prostate, then it is called early prostate cancer. It can be successfully treaded by either surgery or radiation. The scan will show if it started to grow a bit further than inside the prostate. If it has, an operation might not be the best treatment, but there are a lot of other treatments that can be offered to manage this condition. So yes, the full story is not clear until after the scan.
Any cancer diagnosis can be rather alarming, but whatever stage your father is at, there will be treatment available and a support team to help him manage this.
More information can be found on our website https://wellington.cancernz.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Prostate-Cancer-Web-Booklet.pdf or you are welcome to ring us nurses on 0800 CANCER(226237)
Kind regards,
Anna