How big is your prostate? Big prostate usually means high PSA. My PSA was
5.6 nearly ten years ago ( at age 60) and has been as high as 9.0. At the
moment it is 6.5. After three negative biopsies I have stopped having them.
I had a local for the first one but not for the next two as the Aussie lady
Uro working in the UK  thought that locals were for wimps:-)
Derek.

I know a guy age 65 had a PSA oct 2003 of 4.3 he went to sign up for a
research project in March 2004 for a drug that prevents prostate cancer
only to be tested and have a PSA of 8.5 ......a biopsy revealed stage 4
cancer throughout the prostate
Seemingly CT and MRI scans were OK but have they told the truth or have
they not been read correctly
Surgery was done in Oct 2004 and the cancer had gone outside of the
capsule ,,,,,,he is now extremely distressed because he is impotent and
about to undergo 6 weeks of pin point Radiotherapy every single day (
from a new machine of which there is only 3 in the UK )
Now to my mind this means that things are much much worse than the
medics are telling him
I am trying to help his wife cope with the shock etc but don't know how
positive to be .......ideas anyone Anyone any ideas
===========
whoa!!!  something's not right here.......

ok, i'll buy the trial research and assuming that the psa was 4.3 and
8.5 velocity rise within 6 months, the gleason score would have to be
close to a 9 or 10 to achieve a rise like that.  

ok, i'll even buy in on the fact that if it was an aggressive prostate
cancer and that is why the psa score wasn't that high.  the reason is
because the most aggressive prostate cancers all but destroy the
prostate cell's psa make ability and therefore doesn't make the patient
nor doctor aware of such a highly aggressive cancer till it is too late.

now, if i give credit for those two points.  here is a known fact.
prostate cancer may start in the back two lobes and can sometimes be
detected in the median lobe when they do surgery to enlarge the urethra
due to BPH, but the pca foci has spread throughout the entire gland much
like a loaf of old stale bread gets mold in it.  you may have one slice
that actually shows evidence of mold spots, but if you go to the
opposite end of the loaf, there may not be anything showing, but you can
smell the mold spores present.  ok, what does all this mean?

summing it all up,  he had a quick psa rise, the prostate gland has
prostate cancer cell throughout it, but the stage 4 cancer and to have
surgery.  it would be like shuting the door after the horses have left
the barn.  the cancer has spread to remote areas of the body - that is
what stage 4 means.  it is no longer gland contained, nor it is even
close to the prostate gland.  in stage 4 - evidence shows that the
patient has "hot spots" on his bones and/or organs in his body.  so, why
would they operate and remove the prostate gland?

since the prostate cancer was outside the capsule, they may have removed
the erectile nerves.  but even if they don't, there is still a risk of
damaging them as they handle the prostate in removing it, along with
prostate cancer may be attached to the nerve itself.  in that case, the
surgeon has to physically strip the cancer off the nerve by hand,
because the cancer is "sticky"  

also it is common than rare - that erections do come back but it may
take up to 18 to 24 months for this to happen.

there are wives who use pca surgery as a get out of sex free card and
welcome it.  there are others who feel the hurt and want to help their
partner as much as they can.

i would recommend a book called, "making love again" by the lakens.  it
is a book written by a husband and wife who went through prostate cancer
and surgery and their fight to get their lives back again.  they share
their thoughts and feelings at various stages in treatment.

btw - fwiw dept - normal average age of being dx'ed with pca is 65 and
they don't know why, but men who are dx'ed later in life - the pca is
more developed at the time of discovery than if it is dx'ed when the men
is younger.

~ curtis

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc