First PSA Result since starting Zoladex.

Hi !

From what I can read and see your responding good to the hormone therapy with a nice drop in PSA.

If i understand your info correctly you’re to have radiation soon as well and from your diagnose they radiate prostate, seminal vesicles, lymph node lession(s) and probably pelvic lymph nodes and you will be on hormone therapy for at least 2-3 years i suppose.

There are studies for locally advanced / very high risk PC that are adding Abiraterone / Prednisolone for 2 years in the treatment. So that may be something to check up with your MO / medical team.

But, so far your having the standard treatment for your diagnos and you seem to respond good to ADT from my amateur perspective so, keep up the good fight of kicking the the PC beast into submission 

Best wishes - Ulf

Hi mstev2 , looks like a good result to me.  Hopefully it will continue down.

As for the NHS App, that is a complete postcode lottery.  I recently asked my hospital PALS team (they were helpful and efficient) why I could only get my GP and cardiology results.  The answer seems to be that some specialisms haven’t managed to connect local systems with the App.  In my area, Oncology has just been turned on and I can see the very latest letter but no history.  I can get blood tests if through my GP but not from the hospital, although the same path lab processes them I think.  All you can do is make sure you have FULL access from your GP surgery. Hope that helps.  David

Good afternoon Steve. I know you like to do your research and this is an article I found a while ago. There are 2 parts to your results. The first is the level to which the PSA drops within a 9 month period from starting ADT, so ideally this wants to be below 0.2. At the moment I think you are about 3.5 months in to hormone therapy so doing very well. The second part is the time to nadir but basically don't worry if it takes a while to reach it - as long as it continues to go down and preferably reach a value of less than 0.1 then this is OK.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9948006/

Thank you Alwayshope . 

It looks to me that I am off to a good start., but there is time to go. It does seem to me that I am currently reacting well to Zoladex, which is encouraging.

I had a first glance at the article and have saved it for a better look when I can concentrate on it. At the moment I am trying to sort out my eldest daughter's budget, which is taking time. I may need to invent a new mathematics.

Two further things occurred to me:

1. That this prostate cancer stuff really is a long game, and that I am not going to know how well I can do for some time yet - at least until a few months after the radiotherapy.
2. An odd thing. My oncologist predicted that my PSA would "plummet" which appears to be happening. It seems to me that she either trying to lighten the conversation, or she knew something about the details of my cancer that I didn't/don't know.

I am going to ask her when I speak to her next week.

It is information that I can give to the growing circle of men that I know with this illness. So far I am up to 14 acquaintances of a similar age group.

In fun, on another post, I suggested that my name might be a diagnostic indicator. I am now thinking that living in Essex might be the problem.

Steve

Hi !!

Regarding PSA, here you have a very interesting link to regarding prognostic factors of PSA levels after radiation and when on ADT, short term and long term. So, after treatment.

https://dailynews.ascopubs.org/do/psa-nadir-6-months-after-radiotherapy-strongly-prognostic-long-term-survival-patients

Best wishes - Ulf