Prostate Cancer Diagnostic Testing is the key to determining your therapy plan- Don’t over-treat, don’t under-treat- Achieve both Quality and Quantity of Life-
Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer in men. Estimated new cases and deaths from PCa in the United States in 2013: New cases: 238,590 Deaths: 29,720. The challenge to the man who has been diagnosed with PCa is that according to Dr. Gil Welch, most older men have prostate cancer.
The question is if your PCa will ever do any harm to you.
It is well-documented that most men over the age of 60 have some prostate cancer in their prostates. Most of us live with a certain amount of PCa inside of our bodies. No big deal.
The challenge we all face is determining what, if anything, to do about the PCa in our prostates. If we “over-treat” our prostate cancer we may lower your quality of life going forward. If we “under-treat” our prostate cancer we may lower our length of life going forward.
Prostate cancer diagnostic testing is pretty sophisticated. If you know how to interpret it.
I am both a cancer survivor and cancer coach. I work with cancer patients to provide unbiased, actionable information that is both conventional (FDA approved) and evidence-based non-conventional. Have you been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer? What stage?
To learn more about your PSA, Gleason Score, what your biopsy may mean to you and the many options available to you if you have been diagnosed with PCa, scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply ASAP.
Thank you,
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
Part of the answer to determining the significance of prostate cancer screening to you the patient, is to understand what the Gleason Score, Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) and Biopsy tests are. Let’s define Gleason each-
Gleason Grading System-“The Gleason Grading system is used to help evaluate the prognosis of men with PCa. Together with other parameters, it is incorporated into a strategy of prostate cancer staging which predicts prognosis and helps guide therapy.”
Prostate-specific antigen-“PSA is present in small quantities in the serum of men with healthy prostates, but is often elevated in the presence of prostate cancer or other prostate disorders”
Prostate biopsy-“Prostate biopsy is a procedure in which small needle-core samples are removed from a man’s prostate gland to be examined microscopically for the presence of cancer. It is typically performed when the result from a PSA blood test rises to a level that is associated with the possible presence of PCa.”
“For more than four decades, the Gleason score has been the most widely used grading system for prostate tumor differentiation and represents the best-established prognostic indicator for prostate cancer progression besides stage itself(1). Indeed, even within Gleason score 7, the predominance of pattern 4 (Gleason 4+3) carries more than a three-fold higher risk of prostate cancer mortality than Gleason pattern 3+4 (2)…
Although we cannot rule out the possibility that Gleason grade progresses within an individual, we conclude that it is not a major feature of PCa. Our results are additionally supported by Falzarano et al.(15) who found that upon Gleason score re-review, there was no difference in Gleason distribution between the early PSA and late PSA eras(15)…
