Possible Prostate Cancer: Are there side effects of MRI fusion biopsy?

@kpg7121 I made that mistake. I wanted to be a tough guy. I regret that. Get a driver

@kpg7121 That’s good that you had been monitoring PSA for so many years. Most guys don’t do that.

What’s missed sometimes is that PSA just tells part of the story. In your case, it wasn’t just the PSA itself, it was the jump in PSA Doubling Time (or PSA Velocity) that raised concerns.

There’s also the % Free PSA that’s not usually monitored, but also gives more insight. (PSA circulates in the blood in two forms – either attached to certain blood proteins or unattached (“free”). If the % of Free PSA is low (<25%), it may indicate the need for further testing.)

Then, once you’ve had an MRI, the PSA Density tells more of the story. (PSA Density is the ratio of PSA to prostate volume. The larger the prostate volume (due to an enlarged prostate), the more PSA can be produced.)

With each diagnostic step you can build on earlier information to gain more confidence in decisions.

Good luck going forward.

@kpg7121 3mm is .3 cm
Mine is .5cm and is considered very small. Yours seems tiny. The good thing is that, even if worse comes to worse and it is not benign, it is my understanding that it is more likely to be indolent, that is, nothing needs to be done about it. Anything under 1.0 cm is more likely to be either bph related or at least, as I said, nonagressive, and yours is way under that. Best of luck!

@benz57 I hope you're right but I'm wondering why my PSA, jumped from 4 to 5.5 in 7 months.

@yarddogman I wouldn't have made it home in one piece without one, & the clinic made it clear that I would need one.

A month ago I had a biopsy on a seminal vesicle. They went in via my butt cheek. I felt nothing, under the most unobtrusive anesthesia I've ever experienced. (I felt fully conscious the whole short time.) Post-biopsy precautions seemed over the top to me, but I'm sure the staff knew what they were doing. My beautiful wife drove me home, but then I probably drove her crazy over the next few days, mostly obeying orders to avoid physical activity for a week. (I cheated on that by a couple of days, when my MO said the sentence was a bit nuts.) The only side effect I felt after the procedure was like a tiny, non-itching insect bite, so minor that I might even have been imagining it.

Hello All:
From what my urologist told me, the Biopsy is rated #1 in terms of best tests, followed by the MRI, and lastly the PSA. The absolute PSA level (>4) and the amount of jump per year are the most meaningful.
However, timing is important in the testing process. So, having sex or exercising a lot the day of or 2-3 days prior can increase the PSA to higher levels than your normal resting levels. Using the same lab is also important, as the urology group likes to do their own, not taking my primary care's lab as official.
A new technique that my urologist did lately is to have an ultrasound technician scan my bladder after I submitted my urinalysis. She reported on the spot that my bladder had completely emptied.

I had an MRI done back in April 2021 and since I am claustrophobic I needed 10mg of Diazapam. Then when my Urologist did the biopsy, they fused the MRI images with equipment to snip out pieces of the prostate that showed suspicion. Not a big deal at all. No pain except a little snip here and there but was only an instant .

@guybe
I have the same procedure after a biopsy And CT scan. They were concerned that there was a problem with the Seminal vesicles being invaded by PC. They only used a numbing agent and went in rectally. They sampled the seminal vesicles and took four other cores in the prostate. Drove home after and didn’t have any discomfort after the procedure. They didn’t tell me to do any limiting on my activities. I was pretty busy working as a computer consultant, which required me to dive under tables and move around equipment at times.