Speed of PSA rise helps predict survival for prostate cancer patients

October 03, 2005 software

In the past 20 years, the survival rate for all stages of prostate cancer has risen due to early detection and treatment. Early prostate cancer often doesn t present any symptoms and can only be found with regular prostate examinations by your doctor. These tests can help detect, or rule out, prostate cancer. Check back with your physician if you have had an unusual DRE (digital rectal exam), or if your PSA ( specific antigen) level is high. Your physician may order additional tests or suggest repeating the PSA tests if warranted.

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The clinical outcome for prostate cancer patients who have been treated with hormone therapy and radiation therapy can usually be determined by how rapidly their prostate specific antigen level rises following treatment, according to a report published in the October 1, 2005 issue of the International Journal of Radiation OncologyBiologyPhysics, the official journal of ASTRO.

The current test for prostate cancer is called the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test. The PSA test looks for a protein that leaks from the prostate gland when cancer is present but the results can be inaccurate which causes a lot of stress for the patient while he awaits the results of the biopsy which has to be performed to confirm whether or not cancer is actually present. Certain medications, such as Propecia, can mask the real levels of PSA so your doctor should be aware of any medications that you are taking so that the results of a PSA test can be read within context.

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Patients with advanced cancer have been reported to have improved survival and fewer side effects from taking chemotherapy when given melatonin plus chemotherapy vs. chemotherapy alone.⁸⁴. Coenzyme Q10 In an unpublished report, after one year, 10 of 15 prostate cancer patients experienced a 78% decrease in the level of PSA—a marker of cancer activity.⁸⁵ The amount of coenzyme Q10 given to these men was 600 mg per day; after four months, PSA scores began to decline.⁸⁶ Such undocumented case reports require confirmation from published research trials.

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Doctors at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston studied 621 men with prostate cancer treated with hormone and radiation therapy between 1989 and 2003 to determine whether clinical failure after their treatment correlated with the speed at which their post treatment PSA level rose. Clinical failure was defined as cancer recurring in the prostate or spreading to other parts of the body.

After an average of about one year, dependent prostate cancer patients continued to have normal PSA scores.

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Diagnostic tests. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is a protein produced by prostate cells. Normally, it is found in high concentrations in seminal fluid and in small quantities in the blood. PSA is a prostate specific substance (Scher HI 2001). The normal PSA value range is between 0 and 4 nanograms per milliliter ( mL). Recent research suggests that up to 30 percent of men who have a PSA score of 2.6 to 4. mL may have prostate cancer (Lobel B 2005). An elevated blood PSA level, while by no means diagnostic of cancer, is concerning because it indicates excessive breakdown and turnover of prostate cells. For this reason, men with elevated PSA levels should have additional diagnostic testing, most often including a prostate biopsy, to rule out prostate cancer (Scher HI 2001). For rmation on prostate cancer and PSA, see the chapter on Prostate Cancer.

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Researchers found that measuring how quickly the PSA level doubled was a good indicator of subsequent poor clinical outcomes, including cancer developing in other parts of the body or death related to prostate cancer. think pad
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Patients whose PSA level doubled within eight months after treatment failure were more likely to have the cancer return or spread to other parts of the body than patients whose PSA did not double in eight months or less. The estimated five-year rate of clinical failure for patients with a PSA doubling time of more than eight months was only 9.4 percent while 60.4 percent of patients whose PSA doubling time was less than or equal to eight months could expect some type of clinical failure. data recovery
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"The PSA doubling time is an important indicator of how well a patient will recover from prostate cancer," said Andrew K. Lee, M.D., lead author of the study and a radiation oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "Although clinical outcomes may be positively affected if the patient receives hormone therapy with radiation therapy, a quickly rising PSA level unfortunately still portends poor results for these patients." keyboard

American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Onc