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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / November 2006does taking antibiotics cause psa to rise?
i am expecting to be on an antibiotic prior to testing my psa. i am scheduled to have a basel cell cancer removed from the bridge of my nose around the time my psa is to be tested. the doctor wants me to be on an antibiotic for 6 days. they tentively scheduled me for surgery shortly after the results of the psa. the dermatologist does not want me to wait too long before i have the basel since it is growing. is there a risk that the antibiotic could cause the psa to rise or even activate the prostate cancer due to it's effect on my immunity? gary > i am expecting to be on an antibiotic prior to testing my psa. i am > scheduled to have a basel cell cancer removed from the bridge of my [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > gary Note that I am not a physician, so take what I say with a grain of salt. If you want an expert opinion, ask your doctor. I suppose anything is possible, but I don't see any way using an antibiotic could affect your prostate cancer one way or another. It could possibly affect the results of a PSA test. The reason is that part of your PSA elevation could be due to a low level infection in your prostate. As a result, using an antibiotic might lower your PSA by curing the infection. By the way, I believe it is spelled 'basal'. On August 28, Gary Miller wrote: > i am expecting to be on an antibiotic prior to testing my psa. (snip) > is there a risk that the antibiotic could cause the psa to rise or even > activate the prostate cancer due to it's effect on my immunity? > The antibiotic might be Cipro, intended to deal with any infection in the prostate. Such an infection can cause an increase in PSA. Anything that stresses the gland can cause such an increase, and what is wanted is a reading of the PSA that is expressed by the normal and the abnormal (if any) prostate cells, not from stressors. So my amateur opinion is that the answer is "no." But such questions should be asked of the medics, not of lay people on the 'net. Regards, Steve J one reason i am asking is that i understand that antibiotics can lower immunity and prostate cancer likes to attack during lower immunity. gary > On August 28, Gary Miller wrote: > > i am expecting to be on an antibiotic prior to testing my psa. [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Steve J > one reason i am asking is that i understand that antibiotics can lower > immunity and prostate cancer likes to attack during lower immunity. [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] >> >>Steve J antibiotics boost immune systems. antibiotics are prescribed to lower psa when an infection is thought to be the reason for the increase in psa. in any case, the effect will be temporary. j. >>> But such questions should be asked of the medics, not of lay people on >>> the 'net. I suspect Steve may agree that the "not" should be changed to "and". The more I see in these forums, the less confident I become in what our doctors are -- and are not -- telling us. As one example among scores, if I had "asked the internet", I'd have gotten a biopsy 2-3 years sooner, may have avoided SVI, could JUST POSSIBLY have pre-empted my Gleason 4 samples, and may be far less likely now to die of this disease. I.P. > The more I see in these forums, the less confident I become in what our > doctors are -- and are not -- telling us. As one example among scores, > if I had "asked the internet", I'd have gotten a biopsy 2-3 years > sooner, may have avoided SVI, could JUST POSSIBLY have pre-empted my > Gleason 4 samples, and may be far less likely now to die of this disease. Absolutely correct! I had a small nodule & a negative biopsy when my PSA was only 0.8. Six months later, the reading was 1.3. My urologist said "let's wait another 6 months." So I ultimately end up with Gleason 4+3 & treatment failure. And yet the concept of the rate of change being more important than the actual PSA had been kicking around for a while. The collective wisdom of this forum might have made a 20 year survival difference, but I'm not really complaining. Although many of us will be dead before today's research ends up in the treatment protocols, we are lucky to be diseased in an age where there is a huge amount of research - all available on the internet. It's up to us to keep abreast of it - our doctors don't have the time. And while I'm ranting, why is the profession so in thrall to Huggins&Hodges, who got their Nobel 5 years before I was born? Castration isn't much more effective today than it was 60 years ago. -Patrick |
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