How to handle prostate cancer recurrence Prostate cancer recurrence is the most common question we receive here at the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. The chances of your prostate cancer returning depend on your particular prostate cancer and the circumstances of your diagnosis and treatment. The article below, from the Harvard prostate knowledge center, provides a great deal of insight. I found it personally very helpful. Marc B. Garnick, M.D., discusses what biochemical recurrence means and what your options are “Am I going to die?” This is the first question a patient usually asks me when a follow-up blood test reveals that his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level has risen after he has already undergone treatment for prostate cancer (usually a radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy). The fear is understandable: When PSA levels rise to a certain threshold after prostate cancer treatment, the patient has suffered what is known technically as a biochemical recurrence, sometimes also referred to as a biochemical relapse or stage D1.5 disease. Whatever term is used, it means that prostate cancer remains within the prostate after radiation therapy, that it survived outside the excised area after radical prostatectomy, or that it […]
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