Rise in PSA after prostatectomy and radiotherapy treatment.

Good Afternoon Friendship 

I am so sorry to read about your husband's rise in PSA - it's not happened to me but I am aware of others on the Community who will no doubt respond in due course.

From experience on the Community I can only say to trust your Consultant and the sooner the treatment starts the sooner any further spread can be stopped before it gets too far.

I have been on Hormone Therapy for over 30 months and I think I have had every side effect going - having said that we don't all get them all and to me they are just part of my day to day life and don't worry me.

I don't know if you are aware of this publication from Prostate Cancer UK "What if the Cancer Comes Back" but here's a link to it - I hope you find it of use.

https://shop.prostatecanceruk.org/pdf/publication/if-your-prostate-cancer-comes-back-a-guide-to-treatment-and-support-ifm.pdf

If I can do anything else for you please let me know.

Best wishes - Brian.

Hello Friendship .

I am sorry to hear that your husband's treatment so far hasn't dealt with the cancer once and for all. My husband has had 3 recurrences so far in 4 years. From what you have posted so far it looks as if you have an excellent team on the case by ordering the PSMA PET CT scan which can pick up mets when the PSA is as low as 0.2 but can give greater accuracy when it is above 0.4. What we have learnt so far is that there are many different treatments available for repeat recurrence, but what is available will be determined by where the mets are found. My husband is at the other end of the scale in that he is T4. As your husband's treatment so far hasn't been fully successful it implies that there may be activity somewhere which, hopefully, the scan will pick up and determine whether focused therapy will be possible but the use of HT in conjunction with it for a period of time may give a better chance of it being successful. 

I hope you get your appointment soon. We take comfort from the experts when they say they still have plenty of tools in the toolbox but it does feel as if we are on a rollercoaster at times.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. Yes, you’re right, we feel as if we have a very good team looking after us but it does feel like a rollercoaster! Hopefully we’ll have the appointment for the scan soon. 

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me and thanks for the link to the information. Hopefully treatment will start soon….

Hi Friendship,

I am sorry to hear about your husband’s condition. I am going through something similar at the moment. I posted this under “Rising PSA after Salvage Radiation”.

I had a PSMA PET scan in April 2024 at a PSA level of 0.23 - it was clear. Three months later and I am at 0.89 - had another PSMA PET scan a day ago. Whilst I am still waiting for the results, the likelihood of finding something is much better. It may be better to monitor your husband’s PSA and wait until it goes over 0.4.

I am a young and active 60 year old and must admit when I had HT last year, I struggled. I have a new found respect of what women have to go through. I speak for myself when I say that I will only go on HT if I really have to. I would prefer to look at other solutions first, not sure what though.

All of the best.

Munster

Thanks for responding to my post. My husbands PSA is 2.3 so hopefully the PSMA PET Scan will locate the problem area. 
In terms of the hormone therapy, my husband would prefer to try some other treatment as well, but like you, we don’t know what! 
Good luck with your scan results.