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Slight PSA rise 9 months after radiation.
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Aug 28 12:13pm | Replies (55)Comment receiving replies
@jeffmarc It's great to share personal experience (e.g. "the people in my support group all had bigger drops than that, sooner"), but please don't make definite pronouncements based on a small set of anecdotal evidence, especially if it might cause someone unnecessary worry and alarm at what's already a difficult time. Most of us here aren't oncologists, and no one here is in a position to analyse test results and give a diagnosis for someone who's not their patient; all we can do is suggest questions for them to ask their medical teams.
@giordi Try not to let it worry until you've talked to your oncologist, who will consider your test results together with your other medical information and then work out a plan with you (which might just be "nothing to worry about, stay the course and we'll see where it is in 3 more months").
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Let’s take a look at this how it works for people that have active PSA issues
You give somebody a prostatectomy, the PSA drops to undetectable as long as no metastasis were found beyond the prostate.
You give somebody without metastasis Lupron, someone who has a PSA of from 2 to 50 (and beyond) and their PSA will drop to below one within two months. The body doesn’t keep a residual PSA. Now if they are castrate resistant then the PSA will rise above one, but there’s something in the body sending out that PSA.
You give someone radiation to the prostate, when the cancer has not spread beyond it, then their PSA drops to below one in almost every case. Exceptions are when something else is still producing PSA. Of course, if you give them Lupron as recommended by the NCCN after radiation their PSA will still drop below one.
The PSA doesn’t stick around at a higher number, because it doesn’t residually stay in the body. If you have a higher PSA then something in your body is putting out PSA.
Someone with a PSA of 3.57 after getting radiation almost definitely has something in their body putting out PSA. It could be the radiation was done incompletely If there is a metastasis somewhere, not radiated, it could be that.
9 months after radiation if somebody has a PSA above 1 or 2 they should be getting a PSMA pet scan to find out where this PSA is coming from. People don’t retain a high PSA from the past, something in their body is producing it.