PSA will not fall after surgery.

The high PSA 6 months post op is 0.5

Pre-op Gleason score  was 4+5

post op score was 4+3

Tumor stage was T2

In retrospect, I have two questions:

What is the best way to attack this persistently high PSA; and

What investigative tools are used to explain such a PSA.

Note I feel good and have no symptoms at all.

Thanks 

 

Yeah barney,a 5+4 would have been a scary number Pre op. Glad the number was reduced to 4+3 when they can actually get to the prostate in a lab. 

Well, as you know, the only way for your PSA to still be detectable beyond 0.02 ug/L is for some prostate cells to be still producing PSA. These cells do not have to be cancer cells, but normal cells that leaked out during surgery. It might be, that these cells will remain active for a long time...Will send you a pm

Geoff

Thanks.

Will keep an eye out for the PM?

Are you saying that it is possible that PSA remains high for a long time but that is not necessarily cancer? If so, how do we know if it is or is not cancer? For instance, say I perform a scan and that doesn't show anything. What am I to conclude is going on?

From what I understand, often, after your prostate has been removed, small amounts of prostate tissue remains in your body. These bits of tissue create PSA. The modern PSA test can find minute amounts of PSA, and I would imagine, as these bits of tissue never grow, unlike a malignant prostate cancer tissue cell, so the PSA may be there, but not increasing over the months and years. The link I sent you describes this.

Thanks for the link.

I had thought that when in the later stages of prostate cancer, hormone therapy was the main weapon. Chemo may be an option. As for side effects, people are all different.

My sister had breast cancer chemo stage 4, last year and it was apparently the heaviest they do, and it almost killed her with a heart attack. All her teeth had to be removed, she has constant pins and needles in her feet and lower legs and a host of other problems. She has just been advised the cancer has returned to the other breast, and maybe her shoulder... She will have no more treatment. 

So sorry for your sis, my sister in law had a lump for a yr and it went into 13 lymp nodes, was also on srong chemo, and hod 0 side effects. she gained weight from eating more.  How crazy this cancer and chemo is to each of us.  My Mom dies in 1980 at 59 of breat cancer, those days it was barbaric in how they gave chemo.  Yes harmone theraphy is and has many side effects, he has done well with it the xgeva does give him some bone pain. He still wants to continue even with the side effects. I just hope the Chemo holds it at bay for some time at least.  Thanks for the chat, it does help people feel connected in some way. Thank you! GM wife.

Sorry to hear of your husband's situation.

You raise an interesting question. One that I asked a highly regarded physician, who is not an urologist. I asked because I don't ever want to be faced with having to undergo hormone therapy if something else is available.

His reply was "in the past, chemotherapy was reserved as the last roll of the dice after other therapies have been tried, but there is some thinking these days that throwing chemotherapy at a patient sooner rather than later may have very good results".