Help - PSA up 160% six months after RT

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's happening?! PSA was 0.21 when I started RT and one month after I finished but now six month later it's 0.54.

What's going on?

PK5,
Was the radiaton delivered to the pelvic nodes as well as the bed? With SV invasion it is a high probability that lymphnodes are affected and the nodes that are commonly sampled during surgery are not the nodes that are likely to be affected by SVI. You now have to proceed as if the disease is systemic. Read "Beating Prostate Cancer: Hormone Therapy and Diet" by Dr Charles Snuffy Myers. Dr Myers has advanced pc and takes you through the strategies of beating it.
JohnT

thanks for writing and yes there is reason for concern however it may not be as bad as you think. I am betting your oncologist or URO will get one more PSA test before making a decision. The hope is that your PSA levels off.
I agree with Goodlife this is not the end heck it isn't even close. Stay positive, stay healthy, and keep us posted.

peace to you
Dale

PK:
In my opinion, this really has nothing to do with the nodes, or surgery, or surgeon, or robot, or radiologist. This is about the G 9 disease. The most honest and experienced surgeons know that most G 4 and G5 disease will fail eventually, often shortly after surgery, with "short" meaning a few months to a few years. This is the point of grading the cancer to anticipate the next step. You do not mention the grade of the biopsy samples. This certainly has bearing on the issue, though now only in hindsight.
You have a very small amount of psa inducing cancer, and with only two data points we are making assumptions on insufficient information. That said, the ~2 1/2 month doubling time is consistent with G4/5 disease. It is likely that the surgeon did as much as possible to extirpate the diseased tissue. Whether open conventional surgery could have accessed more nodes is moot in your case, the discovery of disease in any lymph glands assumes metastasis further on.
Your team has done all that they could. You have embarked on a series of treatments that will likely be lifelong. The good news is that for men who respond to these treatments, though not curative, many years of productive life remain.
I recall the despair of positive lymph nodes at my surgery for G9 disease. I had to deal with it before I could move forward aggressively (Zoloft included). I recommend you find an accomplished oncologist who is experienced with prostate cancer as your next professional teammate.

Not a very welcome development for you pk5. It sounds like the RT missed its target as it were

My PSA after surgery jumped from 0.1 to 0.4 in four months (=400% rise) so I kind of know what it feels like to experience such a sudden jump.
I too had SVI and my worry was that aiming the RT at the prostate bed might be a waste of time if there was already cancer elsewhere if it had escaped. The Docs said that they basically had to assume/hope that the the PSA was being made by cancer cells that were very close to where the prostate had been.
They said that if my PSA did not go down after RT (or continued to rise) it would indicate that the cancer had not been in the prostate bed and they would consider the next stage of treatment (ie HT)

I was therefore more than relieved that post RT I tested as "Less than 0.1"

There are plenty of folk here with very encouraging stories to tell about their experience with HT so all is not lost yet by many means. I too have been noting what they have to say about HT as I won;t be satisfied that my RT was a real success till I have a few more good PSA results under my belt.

Alf