PCa and BPH - Good News about Both

An update fourteen years into my active surveillance. My “benign” prostate problems recently became serious with causing acute urinary retention, and I needed to clear the blockages.

I chose a one-two protocol of Prostate Artery Embolization followed five days later by aquablation. While PAE will significantly shrink the prostate, and is its own BPH treatment, it was used here to reduce the bleeding from the aquablation and speed my recovery. Aquablation does what TURP does, using a transurethral water jet. New studies show it compares very favorably against TURP.

The aquablation was two days ago, and I am feeling and functioning great. No pain, no blood. Very pleased.

And, all the ablated prostate tissue, or “chips” were sent to pathology to analyze the known prostate cancer.

The report was on MyChart last night, with no cancer found. That matches my last needle biopsy at Johns Hopkins two years ago.

It also reinforces the point that Gleason 6 PCa can be minimal and not show up on biopsy, and/or can simply disappear over time.

Now, I have both the physical BPH relief and the mental relief of the pathology report to celebrate😁