Dear All,
It is my first post in the forum, I am living in Germany (Italian roots) and had on December 14th RP with Da Vinci.
I am at the beginning of my journey but there are already few points that I believe could help who is going through this. Here the key info and then few comments
- Age 54: no smoker, social moderate drinker, always kept fit throughout my life
- March 22: PSA Tested at 1.62, at regular check-up, no issue
- August 23: PSA Level raised to 5.1, Prostate ultrasound normal à advised to go to an Urologist
- September 1rd 2023 -à MRI show no signs of cancer, peripheral zone soms PI-RAD2
- September 8th 2023à Visit to the urologis: MRI Review ok, rectal exploration, ultrasound all normal. He says to measure again the PSA in 4 weeks
- October 8th à PSA Test taken
- October 20th à PSA confirmed at 5.1 , Urologist asks to take the MRI Again in another center
- October 31st à MRI Is taken: at peripheral zone PI-RAD 1 but one suspicious spot in the TZ zone left side categorized as PI-RAD 3; with the urologist we chose to make biopsy
- November 23rd à Biopsy shows Gleason Score 4+4 on TZ Left: out of 10 samples 2 positive with infiltration respectively of 10% and 30%
- December 7th à PET PSMA SCAN shows not metastasis outside of the prostate
- December 14th à RP in Berlin : staging cT2C N0 M0, negative margins no lynfonodes involved; tumor however present on both TZ right and left side with 4+5 Gleason Score ( 95% of 4 , 5% of 5). Nerves were spared.
In one sentence: a crazy story.
I have appointment with the urologist on Jan 18th for first PSA Dosage.
Few lessons learned so far, points of attention
- The Head physician who has operated me told me that the positioning of my tumor (TZ ) is very rare (about 10% of the cases) and 15-20 years ago it would have been caught too late for sure due to lack of technology.
- MRIà the first one done with machine at Tesla 5 did not show any sign of cancer, in the TZ was classified a hyperplasia: the second one done with a Machine Tesla 3.5 at least caught the spot as PI-RAD3. Please do MRIs making sure the radiologist is very experienced, the TZ cancers are difficult to identify
- PI-RAD3 spots do require ALWAYS biopsy: do not postpone or underestimate
- PET PSMA SCAN help a lot the surgeon to staging the tumour and planning the surgery
- Make the check- up regularly! I did not hay any symptoms and I discovered the cancer only because of the regular check-ups
From a physical perspective
- I did not have almost any continency problem since day 1 and 20 days after the surgery I am fully continent
- ED à still working on it (but it is getting better)
From a psychological perspective I am still have problems to navigate through all this. Hope to get better with the time.
Hope this piece of experience can help other people in the forum: do not underestimate the importance of regular controls also if you are in good health!
Cheers,