The large majority of men I meet are not aware that by agreeing to a prostate biopsy they are starting down a slippery slope. The biopsy is a pivotal step—not because it is painful— when expertly performed there should be minimal pain—but because, more often than not, if any of the tissue samples or “cores” taken from different sections of the prostate prove positive for cancer, the whole radical treatment process is set in motion.
Very few men understand that in most cases, prostate cancer is the more common Low-Risk type that is not life threatening and does not require immediate treatment.
So what can be done to prevent this rush to over treatment? Especially the panic to “just cut it out?”
First of all, family doctors
need to refrain from recommending a biopsy at the first sign of an elevated
PSA. You’d be surprised to learn how often this happens. But a slight increase
in PSA does not justify an immediate biopsy. Instead, it should merely result
in a risk assessment process to determine what is really going on in the
prostate.
For instance, an
enlarged prostate, the result of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), common in
aging men, is often the cause of an artificially elevated PSA
reading. Similarly, a random laboratory error, an underlying chronic prostate
infection or even recent sexual activity, can cause a rise in PSA. I remember
once, about ten years ago, my PSA was unaccountably elevated. Then I remembered
I had helped a friend move some heavy carpets from his house to his truck the
day before the test. We repeated the test a week later, and my PSA had dropped
back again to its previous level. Could it have come from my vigorous
exertion?
So an obvious first step, when there
is an unexplained shift upward, is to make certain that all the above
reasons are ruled out and have your doctor repeat the PSA. If on retesting your
PSA is still elevated, additional testing with PCA-3, color Doppler ultrasound
or mulitparametric MRI should be considered before resorting to a biopsy and
starting down that slippery slope to unnecessary radical treatment—treatment
that all too often leads to incontinence and loss of sexual potency.
If further testing indicates
that you should to go ahead with a biopsy, remember that some margin of error
is always present. Biopsies fail to spot cancer about 20% of the time,
especially in men with enlarged
prostates. So even when an initial biopsy comes up free of cancer, you are not
off the hook. Naturally doctors are concerned about missing cancer in
their patients, so chances are they will recommend a second or even a third
biopsy, and one of these follow-up biopsies is likely to show something that
was missed in the first go-around.
A better approach is to consider an
image-guided, targeted biopsy with
MRI or Color Doppler Ultrasound. Not only is high grade disease located more
frequently, low-grade disease can be overlooked.
However, if this should happen,
don’t panic. As Mark pointed out in our book, Low-Risk prostate cancer
is so common that the likelihood of the average man harboring some degree of
microscopic disease can be estimated by putting a percentage sign after his
age. Low-grade disease is a normal part of aging, not something to be
frightened of.
So if your PSA is only slightly
elevated, my advice to you—depending on your age, your life expectancy, your
overall health and your family history—is to think very carefully about the
risks inherent in radical treatment, and don’t allow yourself to be rushed into
getting a biopsy before less invasive diagnostic methods have been explored.
In the meantime, put that percentage sign
after your age, and know you are in good company. Just remember: The odds are
on your side. Time is on your side. For my part, I am doing my best to live up
to the sub-title of our book: “No more unnecessary biopsies, radical treatmentor loss of sexual potency.”
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