Should I have PSA and MRI?

Hi Richy.

Welcome to the forum, which you could have perhaps joined 20 years ago. I truly respect and admire your decision, so far, to avoid other tests, scans and biopsies.

You certainly have a whopping prostate and presumably that explains your elevated PSA.

As you say, at your age, most men will have some degree of prostate cancer. I often think about  the thousands of blokes who are found to have prostate cancer when they die of something else. They all had obviously gone through life without diagnosis and the need for treatment.

Of course it would be wrong of me to advise you what to do, that's only a decision that you can make.

However, the stance you've taken thus far, may have  prevented you taking unnecessary radical treatment and years of side effects. Who knows?

Even though I'm a bit of a gambler, you're a man I'd never play poker with. 😉 

Your intuition doesn't appear to have let you down for the past couple of decades. If you were playing pontoon, and you had 16, would you stick or twist?

Whatever decision you make, I wish you the best of luck mate.

Edited by member 10 Jun 2024 at 16:39  | Reason: Additional text

My father was diagnosed at 76 and decided that all he wanted from the shopping list of tests, scans, treatments etc was the 6 monthly hormone therapy injections.
He didn't find the hot flushes too debilitating and carried on with his normal life until he passed at 84 with coronary heart disease.

I found out at age 62 so have been on the full journey of diagnosis and treatment so everyone is different in their approach.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

Hello Old Barry

Many thanks for your helpful and understanding reply.

There is unfortunately no simple answer and it all comes down to a personal choice of course - but it is a hard choice to make for me. 

Thanks again and best wishes.

Richy

Richy,

I realize a psa test might open a can of worms for you but the fact that you're asking about it here seems to suggest that it's on your mind and you probably need to know the answer. A psa test is easy to get of course and still doesn't commit you to any follow up treatment, given they're only guideline type starting point.

As a next step, it could be worthwhile to ask if you could have a PSMA PET scan. These are [usually] more revealing than an MRI scan and they use marker dies of various sorts to highlight any cancer. This type of scan would not have been available when you had your initial diagnosis.

At age 75 I had hormones as part of some RT treatment but I really would not have liked to stay on them for a moment longer than it was absolutely necessary.

Decisions on treatment are so hard and different specialists can disagree which doesn't make life any easier.

Jules

Thanks Richy,

I can understand your dilemna given the history and the length of time for which you've been untroubled by your prostate.

I did indeed go through a fair amount of HT and RT three years ago and I'm now clear of anything detectable. Never say never but it's looking good.

In my case the PET scan picked up some cancer in 3 lymph nodes, so with current, precise LINAC RT it was possible to hit these targets as well as the prostate but that side of things is probably not relevant to you.

Jules