Seeking advice re increasing PSA values

You could ask for a biopsy, to see if cancer is present. I've had two - one with local and the second with general anaesthetics. I'm glad they found cancer cells present but have been equally pleased that over several years, it has not developed. No treatment needed. You have to have a calm temperament to live with it, but information is power and I could have requested it, but don't like the prospect of the side effects if it isn't recommended anyway. My PSA has been 12 at its highest but has now settled to 6.2. I have slight BPH and tend to retain urine which causes occasional infections, but the cancer is no worry at all in comparison.

I think that you should ask right away for a digital rectal exam by your doctor. If any abnormality in the prostate is detected, then you should ask for an MRI scan of the prostate, which should identify whether a tumour is present and whether it has spread outside the prostate. If the scan shows a tumour, then the next step would be a biopsy to assess its malignancy. The biopsy is a very unpleasant experience (it takes around 20 minutes), but essential.

 I'm a year older than you, and that's the procedure which I went through last year, followed by 7 weeks of daily radiotherapy, combined with hormone therapy. The hormone therapy brought my PSA level right down, and, hopefully, the radiotherapy will have killed off the cancer cells.

​I was diagnosed with P.C early 2005. I had two months of radiation and an inplant  of Zoladex. The Zoladex lasted until Aug 2005.

​I then went 8 years before my PSA started to increase. It reach 13 before there was a further intervention with Zoladex. After 4 months the Zoladex was stopped as my PSA was less than 0.1.

Now after a further approx. 4 years my PSA was 20 and a further Zoladex intervention was deemed necessary. 

I am due to have a blood test in a couple a weeks. I am hoping my PSA is very low and I can come off the Zoladex again. If you wish i will post my blood results so you can see the evidence.

​I am told Zoladex is a synthetic female hormone which is used ti suppress the production of testosterone which is the food that the cancer feeds. Probably an over simplified explanation but it works for me.

Please keep in touch if you think my experience can be of any help to you.

cheers

​Glamour

philip23742,

I went to a Urologist with a PSA of 6.86. he told me I didn't have PSa, not to worry. I told him if I did, I wanted to know. his reply was "the only way you can know is get a biopsy." I opted to have a biopsy, the results showed I had prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 4+3= 7.

Your Doctor told you that often the tests and procedures used for cancer diagnosis/treatments can be worse than the disease. well that might be true in some cases with non aggressive cancer, and low Gleason scores, and factor in the age. BUT, what if it is NOT, and the cancer is aggressive, and  has already spread beyond the capsule? I am not your Doctor, but my advice is go for a biopsy. I has two of them a TRUS biopsy and a MRI guided Biopsy and the results were the same. (I went for treatment.) The Biopsies were not so bad I survived both of them without any problems. I also went for second opinion. Second opinions can be very helpful when you are dealing with any disease. What I am saying to you is.... I don't trust any one when it comes to my well being. And finding out whether or not you have Prostate cancer, is in my opinion lots better than not knowing and worrying with anxiety.

Your Doctor told you

MRIs are a wonderful thing a year ago my 3T MRI showed a pi rads sore of 3. I had another one done 4 months ago and the radiologist read it as four and five. I sent the MRI to the Cleveland Clinic and their Radiologists scored it as two and two. And my local urologist didn't give a damn in any way trying to explain to me how the two Radiologists could be reading it so differently. So I put off the biopsy last year. But I've been having really nasty pelvic and rectal pain for the past two and a half years and finally decided to go ahead and schedule the transrectal biopsy in a month. It doesn't seem likely that prostate problems would cause all the rectal and epididymal Area Pain I'm having, but I'm not the doctor. Unfortunately neither is my urologist.