PSA now 10.1 down from 57

Hi Dogs4me , think this is a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string’.  Firstly, if the last PSA was 57 in June, what was it at the start of HT on 11 September?  Do you have any other PSA reading to indicate the rate it was rising?  Without this info it is impossible to say but the drop from 57 to 10 isn’t bad and to me indicates that the HT is working.  Hopefully it will continue this downward trend for some time.

Thanks David

No no other PSA readings taken so I do suspect that it may well have been higher than 57 by the time treatment started. But I guess at least it is heading in the right direction.....

Absolutely, you know it is at least an 80% drop and could be much more, so that is great news.

I would say the PSA probably did rise a bit, but that the medics were too busy with scans, biopsies, etc, etc to take PSA readings - apart from which another PSA reading at that point would probably do nothing except worry the patient even more.

It is impossible to give "expected" falls in PSA once HT has started, because everyone is different. In my case I went from 16.6 in April to 0.9 in Sept having started HT at the beginning of July (all 2024). I had RT in Oct/Nov, my last PSA in Sept 2025 was 0.02.

Your figures look pretty good to my untrained eye !!

Thank you ️ 

I am glad that you have responded so well to treatment. I have just remembered that when LH had his PSMA PET scan in late August, it showed an increase in size of his tumour compared to his MRI scan back in June so that might imply that his PSA would have also increased.

Thanks again 

A PSMA PET scan uses a radioactive tracer which attaches itself to prostate cancerous cells and makes them much more visible than in other types of scan. Generally, prostate cancer is slow growing so it is not surprising that the tumour appeared larger under a more accurate PSMA PET scan. The tumour may not have increased at all.

Oh ok. Thank you ️ 

If I am reading this correctly your PSA result dropped by 80% within 1 month of beginning treatment.

That's a good result.

Hopefully it will continue.

When I started H/T just over a year ago my oncologist told me that she expected my PSA "score to plummet. It did.

Yours will continue to go down. 

You now have time to consider whatever other options may come up. 

PCa is gradually taking me patience, and it will do the same for you.

Onwards and, slowly, upwards!

Hi, the trend is what you aught to be focusing on.

Three ups or three downs. After you have had years like me, of PSA tests the actual figure is now less important (that’s because my PSA is rather high) but I still only focus on the direction of the PSA number given.

So if you have had a drop this one time, which is an amazingly big drop, which is brilliant, you should be looking for the next two tests to be downward too.

The oncologist will look at the PSA as a marker but it’s not the be all and end all of your OH’s treatment plan. It helps to understand what’s going on but scans and other tests with the blood are checking everything else, so don’t be too fixated on any one thing. It’s a body of information that the MDM (multi disciplinary meeting) will use to form an opinion of what might be going on and what might be the treatment plan to help get the cancer back to sleep.

Good luck the PSA looks great, I wish it were mine.

Thank you .  He should start RT in March/April as long as we can get his hernia sorted in time