Pathology report in - should we commend with HT?

Disturbing PSA rise during RT and ADT concurrent treatment

As you are aware if you have been following this thread, my father in-law has now been on RT treatment for approx 3 weeks. After the first week we did a PSA check and found the PSA had risen from the previous 0.25 to 0.3, consistent in speed with his normal rising PSA pattern. We then discussed the pros and cons of combined RT and ADT treatment here, and opted to combine ADT with the RT for the remainder of the course.

We did another PSA check yesterday, at approx 3 weeks of RT and 2 weeks of combined RT/ADT and the PSA has continued to rise to 0.332, in line with the speed we had experienced prior to starting RT.

Prior, VascodaGama suggested that a rise during RT was a good thing and suggested that the treatment was causing an inflammation of the cells and therefore the increase was not abnormal. 

However, with almost 2 weeks of ADT combined, there has been no impact on the increase.

"The radiation treatment will cause inflammation and such will increase the PSA which result has no significance to judge cancer status. This is a normal occurrence and the increase can only mean that some cells are receiving the rads blow. This is GOOD."

Does this thinking remain unchanged at this time? We're obviously concerned because ADT always reduced the PSA very quickly when he used it initially after his RP. We're not sure why it's having no effect now.

Also, we did every check possible to ascertain if the cancer had spread anywhere in the body and there was no indication. The doctor also believed it was confined to the pelvic area and therefore that's where the RT course is focussed. 

But even in the event the cancer was somewhere else in the body and undetected, would ADT still have no effect after 2 weeks combined with RT?

Thank you for your insight once again guys, really appreciate it.

 

Old Salt said:

Puzzled

It seems to me that PSA tests for your Dad during his current treatment are useless and I would not get nervous about the results.

Vasco expressed the same opinion, I believe, but he used more diplomatic language.

Thank you for your input Old

Thank you for your input Old Salt. We're trying not to get nervous. We're just confused because of all the conflicting information.

In the same hospital we spoke to other patients whose PSA results taken during RT decreased dramatically, and this seems to be a common outcome when searching for information of RT impact on the PSA. And we assume that's because the RT is having an effect on the cancer in the region being targeted.

Vasco also suggested that RT can prompt abnormal PSA results, but the results don't seem unusually inflated, they're following the same steady rising pattern they always followed prior to treatment. I suppose the most unusual thing is the ADT no causing any reduction after 2 weeks of being administered.