Second Biopsy Negative "BUT"

I have a friend that did several biopsies over several years...His PSA was over 10... His PSA then hit something like 15 and another biopsy came back with cancer... But like you - he had many good years without side affects.

Hey newtopc,

To me it sounds like your doctor gave you good advice. 

My first biopsy came back "atypia" (slides reread at John Hopkins and also came back atypia).  I waited and had a second biopsy which found G6 in one core.  Had plenty of time to decide on a course of treatment. 

At 15 cc and 20 cores the biopsies must have removed a good portion of your prostate .

Good luck!

 

My first biopsy was in 2007, 12 core, no positive cores, but lots of PIN and a little HGPIN.

A year later, 2008, another 12 cores, no positive cores, but lots of HGPIN

Two months later, 3rd biopsy, only 7 cores, targeted into some shadows from the 2nd biopsy, and all 7 were positive, ranging from 40-90% cancer.

Shows that biopsies can miss. The analogy I was told, was that a biopsy was like sticking a needle into a loaf of raisin bread, just because the needle doesn't come back with a rasisn, doesn't mean it's not raisin bread.

My uro was experienced enough to know, with my rapidly rising PSA (and no signs of infection or prostate problems) that something was up. It was he, that talked me into the 3rd biopsy so soon after the 2nd, he knew the shadows probably indicated cancer, and it was there, in fact 20% of my prostate was found to be cancerous with Gleason 7.

In all the years before, had nothing but negative DRE - no lumps, hard spots, or anything.

david in sc

Man newtopc. Im so happy that your not going to join us yet. Just keep a good watch on it and enjoy your life and give that prostate as much as workout as you can. Might be good to let you significant other know that the studies have indicated that the more you empty the prostate the less likely you are to get PCa. :)

Heck it if works for you that would be a win win.

Cajun jeff

Like Dave, I too had 3 biopsies before they found it...They found a little atypical in one core during the second biopsy and my U-doc, concerned about my persistent PSA rise wanted to do a third biopsy right away. I resisted strongly...Six months later I had my PSA tested while traveling out of the country, discovered it had almost doubled, I was back in Denver in a few days, third biopsy focused in the area where the atypical cells were found, four cores positive, one of them G-9...

I believe with the TURP biopsy method, some areas of the prostate gland are difficult to reach..I know the third biopsy was the most uncomfortable one, as the U-doc aggressively manipulated the ultrasound wand....

My husband had ASAP, we were told to come back after six months for another biopsy. We did a bit of research and found that ASAP was often the result of an inexperienced pathologist not wanting to call cancer when she or he was not 100% sure it was. Very experienced pathologists have very low rates of ASAP diagnoses according to an expert patholgist i actually spoke to before asking for a second opinion. Prostate cancer under the microscope is often mimicked by other non cancerous disease and therefore reading pathology slides for prostate cancer is more art than science.

It turned out my husband had 3+3 cancer, which due to his age and family history, he decided he wanted out. Although many here thought it was an overreaction, it was the right decision. He actually had 3+4 prostate cancer which was anterior dominant, this is in a spot hard to reach by biopsy needle, thus we were pretty lucky that the biopsy needle picked up any cancer at all.

This is our story and what we learnt from it was the importance of getting a second opinion from an expert. I am not sure if you have had a chance to have your pathology reviewed by an expert such as Bostwick or Epstein, if not it is maybe a good idea.

Regards,
An