Has anyone taken path slides to a different center and gotten new gleason score?

Okay so finally we decided that my dad is going to do follow up treatment and Sloan Kettering in NY.

Since he did not perform his RP at Sloan, they requested to have the slides to look them over before his appointment on Monday.

My dad's pre surgery gleason was a 7 and post surgery became a 9. I heard that different centers can rate the slides differently. I am scared to death Sloan might change it to a 10 or something. Has anyone heard of this happening?

Thank you so much. Okay back to studying for my bar exam. I think if I was to take a board in urology I would pass it before this bar exam.

Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. One pathologist may look at a slide and see a certain grade of cell while another may look at that same slide and judge it differently, more so if it is borderline one way or the other. I had two different labs look at the biopsy plugs and both said 4+3=7. Post surgery the initial lab said upgrade to 4+4=8 while the second lab said still 4+3=7. I have a hankering for the second lab's result because they took the trouble to grade the cells at a point of extension (grade 3). Like they say though, it is what it is, and what will happen will happen regardless of whether it is a 7 or an 8. Same with your Dad. It's out, his follow up radiation hopefully will do what it has to do and whether it's doing it to a 9 or 10 shan't make any difference.
Best wishes for him,
Bill

Because of the MD's I used in two different geographic locations, I had to send the slides out for a second read by another group.  In my case they came back rated the same.

I have a second opinion coming up and had to call the lab (Bostek?) and have them send the slides over to the new Dr.. Had to fill out consent form, and they asked if I wanted to have the "stained" or "unstained" samples sent.

I had no idea, and asked what they normally do. They said most of the time they send the stained. After the second opinion, the slides then get returned to Bostek within 60 days. I don't think they charge for sending out slides, unless it needs to be Fed Ex'd.

Interestingly, they will do this for a second second opinion too.

It gets more complicated with the more knowledge you get about the variables:

12-14 variant types of PCa  (might not be defined properly too)

Ploidity analysis- 3 different types known as to cells DNA structures (cost extra to have this testing done....see Bostwick and other known experts for best analysis.

Then did they miss something inside your prostate gland, you can have multipule gleasons scores found within the same gland. I was found with 7,8,9's  (found 2-7's, 2-8's, 2-9's) also.

Welcome to the jungle, twlight zone and unknowns of PCa, it is beyond belief as to analysis, defining, treatments and various results. Alot of experts are far from being labelled as such and we get to try and navigate our best options....Atleast there are choices at this juncture.

I agree with most here, however I wanted second opinion and sent slides to Hopkins. Epstein dowwngraded mine from 3+4 to 3+3.  It did give me some comfort but as my doc said, "It's still PCa" and therefore I still had to decisde what to do.

Now is the time for you to really be digging in for Feb bar exam.  Study hard, make your Dad proud. Give PCa to the Docs and God.

Ted

Hey Geebra, thanks for responding. Just a quick question: how did they upgrade your staging? I can understand gleason because its pretty subjective, but staging? I thought that is black and white, either you got cancer in the SV or not sort of thing. Can you explain to me exactly what happened? THanks!