Well, happy freakin’ New Year and Happy Birthday! <Sarcasm font>
My PSA continued its upward climb from 0.22 ng/mL in October to 0.26 ng/mL yesterday.
Additionally, my PSA Doubling Time fell from 45.3 months to 41.5 months. Still not bad, but that’s including all of my PSA values from December 2017 through present. That may be giving me a false sense of security, so I ran the numbers for just the last two years (February 2020-present), and that PSA Doubling Time is 26.6 months.
Memorial Sloan Kettering PSA Doubling Time Calculator
What’s really frustrating is that the 68Ga PSMA-11 PET scan just five weeks ago didn’t see anything. Anywhere.
I’m definitely going to have to mull this one over. At what point do the actual PSA value and PSA doubling time outweigh the PSMA PET scan results of not seeing anything? Or do the scan results prevail? I don’t know.
I hope that your 2022 is off to a better start than mine and, yes, I celebrate my 64th trip around the sun this month.
Be well!
Dan's Journey through Prostate Cancer 
Dan, sorry to see this is how you are starting your new year. Probably shouldn’t take advice from me as I took a chance and started SRT and 6 months ADTat a PSA of .08, and almost the same pathology as you.
With that said, I think you might want to draw a line in the sand, whether it’s .3, .4 or one more rise, and resolve that crossing that line will trigger another scan, followed by action, either way.
The one thing you don’t want is micromets to bones that suddenly become apparent.
Your doubling time is so long, that it’s understandable why you haven’t done anything till now. My doubling time was more like 9 month.
Good luck.
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Hi Ken,
Thanks for your comment and suggestions. As you well know, it’s all a guessing game and we try to make the best decisions with the information available at that point in time.
As far as mets to the bones, I agree that that’s not a good thing. However, the statistics seem to indicate that there’s only about a one-in-three chance that the cancer is still in the prostate bed or pelvic lymph nodes (See Dr. Kwon’s second video or this chart of where PSMA PET scans are seeing the cancer’s location at various PSA levels. https://dansjourney2014.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/jamaoncol-5-856-g002.jpg)
You would think that at this point, things would become more clear, not less so. Oh well. We’ll have a conversation with the doctor.
Thanks again for your insights and support.
Dan
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Tough way to start the year, Dan. So sorry to hear about it. Thank you for keeping us all posted and informed.
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Thanks, Jim.
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Dan,
I have followed you since my husband’s radical prostatectomy in March of 2018 his age was 62. He is a patient at Memorial Sloan Kettering. In 2019 he had a biochemical recurrence and went through hormone treatment and radiation to prostate bed. He is monitored every 6 months and PSA’s were undetectable. His latest PSA just rose to .08. We are waiting to speak to his oncologist at MSK. I was wondering if any of your followers had a similar experience in their prostate cancer journey that they can share. Wishing you continued good health and healing. Signed a very concerned wife.
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