Re: BPH story of a PCa patient

Hi Ralph...I thought that when Leonard said, "It is interesting that
your PSA has dropped significantly"; he meant this in the sense that we
track PSA as a monitor of prostate and tumor volume, and that in this
sense there was a significant change. Often we operate under the
assumption that PSA level correlates with prostate size and tumor size,
and usually that's a fair assumption for tracking purposes. However,
sometimes when certain drugs are administered (for example avodart,
some LHRH agonists, etc.) the PSA level can change significantly
without a corresponding change in prostate / tumor volume. In the case
of avodart it is known that it will reduce the pre-avodart PSA level by
about 50%; but the prostate and tumor volume haven't decreased 50%.
The avodart has probably reduced the PSA level by affecting some
protein, enzyme, etc involved in PSA expression so that the same cells
are now simply expressing less PSA. The net result is that the PSA has
dropped "significantly" but for PSA tracking purposes (again, the way I
thought Leonard was using the term), the PSA remains, for all intents
and purposes, unchanged...Ron

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: 2005 - a very stressful year
    ... >>>called and told me my PSA had risen from it's usual 1.0 to 5.8. ... Prostate growth involves hormones, occurs in different ... >prostate cancer, and many men with prostate cancer have normal PSA ... >when the PSA level is elevated and there is no cancer. ...
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  • Re: BPH story of a PCa patient
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