PSA 7 weeks after surgery

Gleason 7/8 4 of 10 cores positive, bone scan and ct scan negative, nodes and tissues negative. PSA after 7 weeks is 4.69...... I am very confused and down. All good news until now.....

Comments

  • Kongo
    Kongo Member Posts: 1,166 Member
    Sorry
    Jliggett,

    Sorry that you received this bad news. Apparently PCa had already moved beyond your prostate at the time of surgery and removing the prostate wasn't going to do anything to stop its continued growth.

    Would you mind sharing a bit more of your medical history such as your PSA history leading up to your biopsy, your age, any other physical symptoms you may have had, the stage, and options you considered at your diagnosis? A Gleason 7/8 has an inherent high risk that prostate cancer had already spread.

    I suspect your medical team will be counseling hormone therapy and may also include a form of radiation treatment.

    Best to you during this tough time.

    K
  • VascodaGama
    VascodaGama Member Posts: 3,638 Member
    Kongo said:

    Sorry
    Jliggett,

    Sorry that you received this bad news. Apparently PCa had already moved beyond your prostate at the time of surgery and removing the prostate wasn't going to do anything to stop its continued growth.

    Would you mind sharing a bit more of your medical history such as your PSA history leading up to your biopsy, your age, any other physical symptoms you may have had, the stage, and options you considered at your diagnosis? A Gleason 7/8 has an inherent high risk that prostate cancer had already spread.

    I suspect your medical team will be counseling hormone therapy and may also include a form of radiation treatment.

    Best to you during this tough time.

    K

    You will knock it down
    Jiggett

    Welcome to the board.
    It is upsetting when after a treatment we find it didn’t work. I understand your feelings. But you need to react and confront the situation positively.
    You are not alone. Many of us have experienced similar situation and know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You got other ways to handle the matter. Kongo is advising you two alternatives of salvage treatment that can give you a chance of cure, depending on your stats. Even if such couldn’t be the case, hormonal manipulations alone can provide you with many years of control. Many guys manage to arrest cancer over ten years before changing therapies.

    I experienced RP failure in 2000 at my first PSA test 4-weeks post surgery. I was diagnosed with micrometastases undetectable by traditional scans(no PET scan with proper contrast agents at the time). Later in 2006 I had SRT and now I am on HT.

    You need to get a better understanding of your real present status. Those traditional scans (CT, MRI, BSS) cannot detect small tumors (usually with PSA lesser than 10 ng/ml), so that you could inquire with your doctor in having a PET scan with the newer contrast agents the F18 and C11.
    A good diagnosis will lead you to a better decision on the type of salvage.

    Here are links that may help you;
    http://www.prostate-cancer.com/hormone-therapy/patient-profile/patients-hormonal.html
    http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/744220
    http://www.hisprostatecancer.com/salvage-radiation.html
    http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/25/15/2035.full

    Be positive. You will knock it down.

    VGama