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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / November 2004Is once per year enough for a PSA test ???
Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? Thanks, Dave That is the usual procedure. jimhoney > Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? > > Thanks, Dave >Subject: Re: Is once per year enough for a PSA test ??? >From: "jimhoney" jimhoney@worldnet.att.net [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >> >> Thanks, Dave ;-} Yes, if if you haven't been diagnosed with PCa before or you have gone several years with undetectable PSA. Keep track of PCA velocity, and remember that the warning point is 2.5 not 4.0 > Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? > > Thanks, Dave If you've never had prostate cancer then I think the general rule is once a year. Stay with it, it should be covered in most health insurance. Chances are you won't get it. If you have a family history as I did then your risk is higher, but is still is remote you will get this. Anyway good luck and keep getting those PSAs it's still the best way to alert you to a problem. Dale J.  SignatureEmail: dalej2@mac.com "Depends", that is somewhat a joke..... If you have prostate cancer diagnosed, once a year is too little. If you have a high PSA, you should get it monitored, and find out why it is high. You could have BPH, or enlarged prostate. (no Dr. here) You could have infection. You could have prostate cancer. Wouldn't it be nice to find out why the PSA is above average, and go from there. I was 49 when I had a PSA of 7.....hum...... I did have prostate cancer, and had an RP/ Keep in touch with a good Prostate Cancer Specialist, and you will have fewer questions, and more answers. Urologist's are great Dr/s and do many tasks.... Prostate Cancer specialist, deal with one task.... John Loomis Good wishes > Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? > > Thanks, Dave Yes. And don't worry about the results (unless it's over 4). What you're wanting to see is that it remains level. If it starts at 1.1, stays at 1.1, and then starts going up to 1.4, then 2.5, that's when you have to worry. SignatureProstate Cancer Survivor (so far), not a doctor PSA 16 10/17/2000 @ 46 Biopsy 11/01/2000 G7 (3+4), T2c RRP 12/15/2000 G7 (3+4), T3bN0M0 PSA .1 .1 .1 .27 .37 .75 EBRT 05-07/2002 @ 47 PSA .34 .22 .15 .21 .32 Lupron (1 mo) 07/21/2003 @ 48 PSA .07 .05 .06 Lupron (3 mo) 8/03 (48), 12/03, 4/04 (49), 09/04 (50) non illegitimi carborundum > Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? > > Thanks, Dave > Yes. And don't worry about the results (unless it's over 4). What you're > wanting to see is that it remains level. If it starts at 1.1, stays at 1.1, > and then starts going up to 1.4, then 2.5, that's when you have to worry. I think the latest view is that 4.0 is too high for a man under 60. Some younger men in this group were diagnosed with cancer with PSA under 4. But the second point here is the key one. How often you need to test is related to the PSA level, and whether and how quickly it is rising. If your PSA is low, and one year is about the same as the year before, once a year monitoring is sufficient. If it went up significantly, then closer monitoring may be warranted. At any rate, that's my layman's reading of the literature. Alan > Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? You should really depend on a qualified medical authority for this. Certainly, once a year should be enough unless there are some special circumstances. Some recent research suggests that for many men it may even suffice to have PSA tests less frequently than once a year. On the other hand, it is a simple test and not all that expensive. But as I said, you really need a good doctor to guide you through this. > Thanks, Dave Ordinarily, I'd agree with you Leonard. But, his "qualified medical authority" is the guy who said at 50 years, PSA was uneccessary. Besides, when it comes to the more fundamental issues regarding prostate cancer, I wonder if some of us are not "authorities". I know this may raise the hackles of some in the establishment, but maybe even "medical authorities." Of course, "qualified" probably requires some sort of piece of paper, which his doctor has and we don't. SignatureProstate Cancer Survivor (so far), not a doctor PSA 16 10/17/2000 @ 46 Biopsy 11/01/2000 G7 (3+4), T2c RRP 12/15/2000 G7 (3+4), T3bN0M0 PSA .1 .1 .1 .27 .37 .75 EBRT 05-07/2002 @ 47 PSA .34 .22 .15 .21 .32 Lupron (1 mo) 07/21/2003 @ 48 PSA .07 .05 .06 Lupron (3 mo) 8/03 (48), 12/03, 4/04 (49), 09/04 (50) non illegitimi carborundum > > Im 50. Is once per year enough ?? > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > > Thanks, Dave > Ordinarily, I'd agree with you Leonard. But, his "qualified medical > authority" is the guy who said at 50 years, PSA was uneccessary. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > authorities." Of course, "qualified" probably requires some sort of piece > of paper, which his doctor has and we don't. I think we all agreed that he needs to get another doctor. But when he does, he really has no choice but to rely on that doctor. If he tries to get advice from the likes of us, he will have a hard time separating the wheat from the chaff. And if he chooses to believe the wrong person, he may make a serious mistake. The best we can do is raise issues for him to discuss with a competent doctor. From us, maybe. But from half a dozen books on PCa, medical books in the library or a big bookstore, and many authoritative websites, it's pretty easy to surpass many GPs, to at least ask a good urologist many vital questions, and to recognize and express to the urologist some life choices, if it comes to that. I gave my surgeons some quite specific guidelines on my views about side effects and benefits -- based on my research and my choices -- in case they had to make some lifestyle decisions while I was being gutted. Every doctor I consulted -- about a dozen, all told -- said the final choices were up to me, not them, and there's no way any of them had time to lead me by the hand through whole books on the topic. Now I'm extending that research past primary treatment options -- bin dere, dun dat, no second thoughts -- to the advisability and specifics of follow-on treatments with or without zero PSA. Again, it's up to me to choose, and there's no way a doctor has the time to teach me what I can learn from laymen's and doctors' books, and the experiences here will carry weight, too, even IF some guys got very few symptoms from HT (which may imply it's not doing its job) and others were devastated by HT side effects. My present research will help build two paths towards a decision: greater book larnin' to base it on, and a set of questions I plan to submit to the tumor board that discusses MY case every week. I'm hoping to steer this roomful of physicians towards making some specific recommendations for me, based on the statistics, science, and black art of recurrence, cures, side effects, lifestyle choices, quality of life, etc. of both of my unrelated cancers. I must assume their general advice so far has presumed I'm the average PC patient -- worried first about erections, then about ultimate life span, maybe even about avoiding surgery or hair loss (with chemo). I don't care about any of those as much as I care about mental and physical vigor and a tolerable transition from vigor to rigor. Why add two years of misery from adjuvant, zero-PSA HT side effects to the vigorous end of one's life? Ain't no doctor able to make that choice for me, yet I want a doctor's worth of information to base it on. I.P. "Leonard Evens" <len@math.northwestern.edu> wrote >> > I think we all agreed that he needs to get another doctor. But when he > does, he really has no choice but to rely on that doctor. If he tries to > get advice from the likes of us, he will have a hard time separating the > wheat from the chaff. > ... he really has no choice but to rely on that doctor... I think I.P. hit the nail on the head pretty well with his response to this but I'll add another thought or two. In the final analysis, it seems to me that you've got to make your own decisions about what to do. Most often, that decision might be to find a competent doctor and follow his advice. But sometimes things don't quite work out that way. Sometimes you're not so sure about his competence, or about his advice and you've got to do some of your own research and, when push comes to shove and your life is at stake, make what you believe is the most rational decision - which may or may not be what the doctor recommends. As long as I am conscious and able to think for myself, I'll never give away my right, or my responsibility, to make my own decisions. Oftentimes I have done what a doctor recommended because I decided to trust him rather than my own judgment. Oftentimes that was the right decision. Sometimes it was not. Alan > From us, maybe. But from half a dozen books on PCa, medical books in the > library or a big bookstore, and many authoritative websites, it's pretty [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > > get advice from the likes of us, he will have a hard time separating the > > wheat from the chaff. >> Ordinarily, I'd agree with you Leonard. But, his "qualified medical >> authority" is the guy who said at 50 years, PSA was uneccessary. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> authorities." Of course, "qualified" probably requires some sort of piece >> of paper, which his doctor has and we don't. Leonard replied: > I think we all agreed that he needs to get another doctor. But when he > does, he really has no choice but to rely on that doctor. If he tries > to get advice from the likes of us, he will have a hard time separating > the wheat from the chaff. And if he chooses to believe the wrong > person, he may make a serious mistake. The best we can do is raise > issues for him to discuss with a competent doctor. I second that motion. I have a list of 17 discussion points (plus others previously passed over) to raise with my onc on November 29. It might be longer when the day arrives. Regards, Steve J __ "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.'' --Sir Winston L. S. Churchill |
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