This interview is part of NewsGram’s ongoing coverage of patients who seek medical treatment outside their home country. Today, we speak with Daniel P., a 77‑year‑old resident of Florida, who decided to travel abroad for prostate cancer therapy after exhausting standard options in the United States. His journey eventually led him to Germany, where he received Lu‑177 PSMA radioligand therapy – a treatment not available to him at home – coordinated through the airomedical.com platform.
Daniel’s story starts like many others: diagnosis, surgery, radiation, medications. “For a while, everything held,” he says. “Then my PSA went up, and new bone lesions appeared.”
He never thought that cancer would push him to think of going for treatment abroad. “I wasn’t planning to compare clinics in Europe,” he says. “I just realized the therapy I needed didn’t exist for me here.”
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That moment forced a choice he hadn’t expected: stay and wait, or leave and fight.
This is where his story begins – told in his own words.
Daniel remembers the moment simply. “No drama,” he says. “Just a lab result – PSA over 20. And I knew the treatments weren’t holding anymore.”
For him, that number wasn’t abstract. He had already gone through everything available to him in the U.S.: prostatectomy, radiation to the prostate bed, hormone therapy, targeted drugs like Lynparza and Erleada, Xgeva for bone support, even palliative radiation when the pain in his spine became too sharp. But the cancer kept moving.
He says he sat in his oncologist’s office and heard the new options: clinical trials, waiting lists, maybe chemotherapy. "It didn't sound wrong," he says. "But none of it was sufficient."
When he left the clinic that day, he felt something he hadn’t felt before. “It was like the disease was running ahead of me,” he says. “And I was running out of ways to catch up.”
That was the moment he realized he needed to look beyond the familiar path – even if it meant leaving his home country to find a treatment that could reach the cancer where it was hiding.
Daniel says he never planned to look for treatment abroad. He first heard about Lu‑177 PSMA during a routine conversation with his oncologist. “The idea made sense right away,” he recalls. “A treatment that goes straight to PSMA‑positive cancer cells.” Then came the part he couldn’t ignore: it wasn’t available to him in the United States.
That pushed him into late‑night research. “I’m not a doctor,” he said, “but I know how to look for answers.” He started reading clinical papers, patient stories, and data on 177 Lu PSMA therapy in Germany – years of experience, stable protocols, and consistent results from German nuclear medicine centers. The therapy has been used in Germany for more than 10 years. “That was important to me,” he says. “If you’re going to do something this precise, you want people who have done it a thousand times.”
The choice was more and more obvious the more he read. Life in the U.S. was about waiting for trials, for approvals, for openings. "I didn't have time to wait," he says. “I wanted something proven – even if it meant leaving home.”
Daniel says that once he understood he needed treatment abroad, the next challenge was figuring out where to begin. “You don’t just wake up and know which hospital in Germany treats prostate cancer,” he tells us with a quiet laugh. “I had no roadmap.”
He began with patient stories, men who had traveled for radioligand therapy. His search brought him to Airomedical, a platform connecting international patients with clinics abroad. What struck me was that they weren’t promising miracles,” he explains. “They were explaining the process. And that meant a lot to me.”
Within days, Airomedical presented several options in Germany, including Helios Hospital Berlin‑Buch, where nuclear medicine specialist Prof. Dr. med. Stefan Dresel had extensive experience with Lu‑177 PSMA therapy. “Seeing a name, a real doctor, a real clinic – that made it feel possible,” Daniel says. “It wasn’t just an idea anymore. I finally knew where to go.”
Daniel says the decision to travel for treatment outside your home country was one thing – but preparing for it was something else entirely. He remembers sitting at his kitchen in Florida, surrounded by printouts, flight options, hotel listings, and medical documents. “It felt like planning a military operation,” he says with a tired smile. “Except the stakes were much higher.”x
He says Airomedical helped him understand the sequence – admission, therapy day, monitoring, discharge – and ensured the clinic had everything it needed before he arrived. “Having someone outline the steps made it feel less chaotic,” he says. “I still had to do the traveling, but at least I knew what I was walking into.”
Emotionally, the preparation was even harder. He remembers the night before his first flight to Germany. “I wasn’t worried about the plane,” he says. “I was worried about what I’d find on the other side. But staying felt even worse.”
Daniel remembers his first morning at Helios Hospital Berlin‑Buch. “I thought I’d be nervous,” he says. “But the place was calm. Everyone just knew what they were doing.”
He met Prof. Dr. med. Stefan Dresel, the nuclear medicine specialist overseeing his therapy. “He was precise and straightforward,” Daniel says. “The kind of doctor who makes you feel the plan is already in motion.” The team walked him through the schedule – admission, preparation, confirmation of his Lu-177 dose, which was between 6,850 and 7,590 MBq, administration, monitoring – with quiet confidence.
The treatment day was easier than he had expected. He mostly felt a heavy kind of fatigue, but nothing alarming. The nurses checked on him regularly, and the entire process felt safe.
What stayed with him most was the efficiency. In Germany, he says, everything simply runs: you arrive, get treated, get monitored, and go home.
Daniel didn’t expect dramatic changes after the first cycles of Lu‑177 PSMA. Years of treatment had taught him to be cautious. He simply hoped the cancer would slow down.
After a follow‑up examination in Berlin, he felt real relief for the first time. Professor Dresel showed him images in which some bone injuries had improved, others were less noticeable, and some were barely visible. Although this was not a cure, the progress was obvious.
His PSA began to fall steadily. Seeing the number drop instead of rise gave him something he hadn’t felt in a long time – space to breathe.
He remembers leaving the hospital that day feeling lighter, as if the disease had finally stopped chasing him.
For more than two years, Daniel lived in a rare period of stability. His scans were quiet, his PSA stayed low, and life felt manageable again.
However, this changed in May 2026 when a Pylarify PSMA PET-CT revealed new bone lesions positive for PSMA.
He didn’t wait long to decide what to do. “I knew where I needed to go,” he says. Within weeks, he arranged another trip to Germany, returning to Helios Hospital Berlin‑Buch and to Prof. Dresel, the doctor who had overseen his first course of Lu‑177 PSMA.
Before approving another round, the team performed a MAG‑3 renal scan to check his kidney function – especially the tubular extraction rate, which determines whether the kidneys can safely handle repeat radioligand therapy. The results were good enough to proceed.
Without hesitation, he agreed to undergo a second course of Lu-177 PSMA.
Daniel says he didn’t rush into the idea of adding an immune‑based treatment. “Radioligand therapy made sense to me,” he explains. “Immunotherapy felt less predictable.”
But after the May 2026 scan showed new PSMA‑positive lesions – and after the first repeat cycles of Lu‑177 PSMA again produced early improvement – he began wondering whether there was a way to strengthen the response and make it last.
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He and his wife inquired about BiTE therapy, which led to a discussion about dendritic cell vaccination. "It wasn’t just a generic immune boost," Daniel explains. "Lu-177 targets the cancer, while dendritic cells help the immune system complete the task.”
The team in Duderstadt, led by Dr. Thomas Nesselhut and Dr. Jan Nesselhut, had decades of experience with personalized dendritic cell cancer vaccines. The approach was established and structured.
There was also structured evidence behind the combination. An active Phase I clinical trial – NCT07219147 – was studying the safety and immune effects of pairing Lu‑177 PSMA‑617 directly with a dendritic cell vaccine. “Seeing real research made the decision easier,” he adds.
The plan required two coordinated treatment trips: Lu‑177 PSMA therapy in Berlin, and dendritic cell vaccination in Duderstadt. Managing two clinics in two cities would have been difficult on his own, but Airomedical handled the timing so both approaches worked as one strategy.
Daniel says the main lesson from his experience is simple: if a proven therapy is available to you, don’t wait. Time is the one thing cancer keeps taking.
He also wants patients to know that treatment abroad is a real, practical option. Not easy, but sometimes the only way to move forward.
His repeat therapy brought clear results – fewer active bone lesions and a PSA drop from 5.1 to 0.682. It wasn’t a cure, but it gave him room to breathe again.
He believes the medical team matters as much as the treatment itself. The structure, the experience, the clarity – all of it carries you through.
Looking back, he says the path is hard and far from home, but it gave him more time and another chance to fight. For him, that was enough.
Seifert R, Telli T, Lapa C, et al. Safety and Efficacy of Extended Therapy with [177Lu]Lu‑PSMA: A German Multicenter Study. Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 2024.
M.D. Kaminska O. Florida, USA Patient Shares Lu-177 PSMA Experience in Berlin. Airomedical. Updated 2026.
Unterrainer LM, De Leiris N, Unterrainer M, Delker A, Hempel L, Ells Z, et al. Evidence‑Based Clinical Protocols to Monitor Efficacy of [177Lu]Lu‑PSMA Radiopharmaceutical Therapy in mCRPC Using Real‑World Data. Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 2025.
Kamolina-Kamianetska Y. & Dr. Ahmed F. Daniel’s Return to Germany: Lu-177 PSMA & Dendritic Cell Therapy for Prostate Cancer. Airomedical. 2026.
NCT07219147 — Phase I Clinical Trial. Combination of Lu‑177 PSMA‑617 with Dendritic Cell Vaccine. ClinicalTrials.gov. Last updated: 2026.
Dr. Ahmed F. Lutetium-177 PSMA Prostate Cancer Treatment in Germany. Airomedical. Updated 2026.
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