Regular MRI scan or not

Hi OM and welcome 

Yes Def u should ask for a scan, hard to believe they haven't offered you one in 4 years.

I presume that your PSA is under 10 which is good for AS but there are situations where u can have a low PSA but tumour still grows although this is fairly rare.

Just to be on the safe side I would push for a MRI

Best wishes

Steve 

Hello 6Oysterman2 

Welcome to the club - I will go easy on you! .

My thoughts were an MRI every year but on checking according to our information it's not  - it's a digital rectal examination (finger up the bum). Her's a link to our information

 Monitoring Prostate Cancer

The TURP procedure would be to help you increase your flow - and after one of these the "chips" taken from your Prostate would be examined so there's another check done!

I think if I were in your shoes (and I am not a fan of AS) I would be asking my team for an MRI just to be sure. 

I know the NHS is busy - but at the end of the day you are looking after yourself and you do need to be proactive.

I do hope the above helps.

Best wishes - Brian.

Hello 6Oysterman2 and welcome from a wife so of course I will be gentle. This is the NHS guidelines on active surveillance.

Your TURP should have resulted in a histology report which should confirm that you are still stage 1 or if there had been a change so I would get a copy of the report.

You say that your PSA has remained low but the question is has there been any movement upwards and if so at what rate.

There is an interesting video on the subject of active surveillance which you might want to watch.

https://youtu.be/a0sjUallZQU?si=UXWrFqrQCwJDhbgJ

My husband is one of the rare people who went from having pre cancer to stage 4 over a 10 year period despite having active surveillance so I would personally advocate having an MRI scan if you can get it just to put your mind at rest and certainly if you have anything in your histology reports which are in the intermediate risk group.

Cheers Grundo for the reply.

PSA averaging 1.5 for last 6 tests, but know it's not 100% correct. I'm assuming because of that, i am not a high priority.

I just spoke to urology dept who said i would need to see consultant when having follow up appointment about TURP. They put me through to appointment but due to the backlog had no idea when that will be. 

Any ideas????

I think that I would just keep pushing if possible.

1.5 is very low but could well be ok.

What did the original MRI say in terms of tumor size bearing  in mind u have been diagnosed with PC albeit 4 years ago.

I assume that the PSA was also 1.5 then as well.

Last question, why did u have the MRI with the low PSA ?

Steve 

MRI 2021: 64g prostate, 7mm PIRADS-3/4 left PZ, NO with a PSA of 5.84

LA TP prostate biopsy: Gleason 3+3 3/24 cores with maximum of 3mm.

PSA was higher at the time.

Ok, so MRI probably done cos of higher PSA, strange why it's down to 1.5 since then.

Good that tumour size only 7mm but think u need to check that is still the case.

So hopefully u won't have to wait too long for a MRI  although u could go private although hopefully not that urgent 

Good luck

Steve 

I won't hold my breath ref waiting for an MRI.

According to the appointment dept, there is a huge backlog of people waiting & management know about it but are not sorting the issue out. Time will tell & thanks for all the replies 

I think pretty poor show on their part the fact that you've been diagnosed 4 years ago with PC and during that time only PSA done just based on the fact it's low.

The other option change NHS hospitals if u have another one nearby, I changed twice cos  not happy

Steve 

Hello Steve (Grundo) 

I always wonder about waiting lists (I am waiting for a PSMA -PET Scan) and about a mile away we have a new "Community Diagnostic Centre"

Oldham Community Diagnostic Centre

It's open 8am to 8pm 7 days a week and claims to do 30,000 tests per year. The population of Oldham is 246,000 - so we either have a lot of poorly people or they don't do as many tests as they say!

Best wishes - Brian.