Unusual Symptoms

Doctor's File Notes Urologist December 10, 2019



Is there any value in getting an ultrasound at this point?


Subject: RE:(No subject)
Message body: Ultrasound is not very useful for screening. MRI can be informative but again based on your numbers I would not get one now.


Sent: 1/8/2019 2:30 PM PST
Subject: (No subject)
Based on a risk calculator derived from a large study called the prostate cancer prevention trial and putting in your data, your risk of a higher prostate grade cancer is about 7% and a lower grade prostate cancer is about 14%

For context, men with higher grade prostate cancer have maybe a 1 in 20 chance of dying of their disease within 10 years. Men with low grade cancer rarely die of prostate cancer with follow up studies of up to 15-20 years post-diagnosis.

From the numbers above you can see that prostate is quite common but many men who have it do not die of it.

I would not recommend doing another biopsy given your response to the last one. Given the longevity in your family it would not be unreasonable to check another PSA at some point but the odds of you actually dying from prostate cancer are fairly small, particularly given your prior negative biopsies.