PSA rise again

Sometimes antibiotics do not easily end a urinary infection and this can of course mean an increased PSA or contribute to it. However, antibiotics will not reduce cancer caused PSA in the way HT usually does. Inceasing PSA reading does not necessarily mean your previous biopsy was wrong in terms of the extent or mutation of cancer, although this can change over time and indeed it is sometimes the case that not all the cancer or the most advanced parts are found in the first biopsy. It seems your consultant has this in mind by calling for a further biopsy.

Unfortunately, although scans have improved over recent few years, those interpreting them sometimes can see nothing even when cancer has been proven by biopsy. Then scans can be interpreted differently. I had what was described as a suspicious area within my Prostate and strongly suspected cancer in a lymph node due to uptake of Choline in an advanced scan according to my present hospital. However, 3 other hospitals with whom I have had past involvement also studied this same scan and were not convinced that there was cancer there although they agreed these areas were suspicious. So it can be a matter of interpretation. It can be helpful to compare with past scans. The reasons why in the case of the Iliac node the 3 hospitals were not convinced cancer was present was because the Choline uptake was not decisively strong and because the size and shape of the node in question was still the same as on scans taken quite a number of years ago. Sometimes an accurate diagnosis is difficult to arrive at and further scans and tests may be done to assist in this and to look for change.