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3rd biopsy cancelled

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User
Posted 14 Jun 2019 at 13:48

Hello!

My partner is a paraplegic with no feeling from waist down. As a resilt he would not know of changes so initiated an investigation last year. He had his first biopsy in November (after being cancelled 3 weeks before). The results were for active surveillance.  He had a date for a 2nd biopsy in March, which was cancelled and rescheduled for the begining of April, where it was discovered the cancer had gone from a .3 to .4 . From this he was then advised to have a 3rd biopsy to determine whether to have a prostectomy or radiotherapy.  This was, cancelled and so we are now waiting for the rescheduled appointment.

I feel that this is dreadful and is a way of being able to manipulate the statistics.

So much for treatment being within 62 days!

Is this me being over sensative or is it 'normal'

User
Posted 14 Jun 2019 at 14:32

Kittyhawk,

Sorry to hear about this. It's not normal for procedures to be canceled, but it certainly can happen.

It's difficult to work out where he is in terms of diagnosis and treatment from what you've said, or what the .3 and .4 refer to (PSA, gleason, stage, etc)?

It would help to give you a good answer if you could create a bio in your profile with dates of test results such as PSA level, biopsies (and if transrectal or template), scans, etc. and any procedures/drugs, so we can see what tests he's had, and what the outcomes were. Click on my avatar for an example. Then we can give you better advice targeted at his situation. We can give you lots of support and advice here, but it helps to know more precisely what stage in the process your partner is. If there are any of the tests or results you don't understand, do say, and we can explain.

Also, does he have a Macmillan nurse or specialist urology/oncology nurse assigned to him? They can be really good to contact when you don't understand something or when you want to chase something up. Often in the consulting room you are given a lot of info and don't have the time to take it all in, or didn't ask questions you thought of later. You can approach his assigned nurse and have them explain again, or you can ask here, but we obviously don't have his medical records to look back over.

User
Posted 14 Jun 2019 at 23:05
I can't see it has been said that your partner has had an MRI. If this has not yet been done I would suggest you ask why not and could he now have this scan? Among other things, this can assist the urologist place the biopsy needles to take cores from suspicious areas. and yes template biopsy is more encompassing and less likely to cause infection. Also, I can't believe that RT would be given without first having an MRI scan and if this is done after the biopsy it will be 4 or so more weeks waiting for the damaged Prostate to heal before the scan can be done.

It sometimes pays to press to make progress as I have found having involved PALS (Patient Liaison Service of a hospital) on two occasions, following which things happened quickly.

Barry
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User
Posted 14 Jun 2019 at 14:32

Kittyhawk,

Sorry to hear about this. It's not normal for procedures to be canceled, but it certainly can happen.

It's difficult to work out where he is in terms of diagnosis and treatment from what you've said, or what the .3 and .4 refer to (PSA, gleason, stage, etc)?

It would help to give you a good answer if you could create a bio in your profile with dates of test results such as PSA level, biopsies (and if transrectal or template), scans, etc. and any procedures/drugs, so we can see what tests he's had, and what the outcomes were. Click on my avatar for an example. Then we can give you better advice targeted at his situation. We can give you lots of support and advice here, but it helps to know more precisely what stage in the process your partner is. If there are any of the tests or results you don't understand, do say, and we can explain.

Also, does he have a Macmillan nurse or specialist urology/oncology nurse assigned to him? They can be really good to contact when you don't understand something or when you want to chase something up. Often in the consulting room you are given a lot of info and don't have the time to take it all in, or didn't ask questions you thought of later. You can approach his assigned nurse and have them explain again, or you can ask here, but we obviously don't have his medical records to look back over.

User
Posted 14 Jun 2019 at 14:35
Why on earth would he need three biopsies?

Has he had a template biopsy under general anaesthetic, rather than repeated TRUS biopsies, which a leading prostate cancer oncologist said ‘the trial has shown us that the TRUS biopsy is as bad as we thought it was’?

I read today that some hospital trusts are abandoning the TRUS biopsy, (up the bum, as we amateur urologists call it), in favour of 100% transperineal or template biopsies.

I can only say to you that most prostate cancers are very slow-growing, and so a few month’s delay here and there, are unlikely to make very much difference to the final outcome.

Best of luck.

Cheers, John.

User
Posted 14 Jun 2019 at 23:05
I can't see it has been said that your partner has had an MRI. If this has not yet been done I would suggest you ask why not and could he now have this scan? Among other things, this can assist the urologist place the biopsy needles to take cores from suspicious areas. and yes template biopsy is more encompassing and less likely to cause infection. Also, I can't believe that RT would be given without first having an MRI scan and if this is done after the biopsy it will be 4 or so more weeks waiting for the damaged Prostate to heal before the scan can be done.

It sometimes pays to press to make progress as I have found having involved PALS (Patient Liaison Service of a hospital) on two occasions, following which things happened quickly.

Barry
 
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