They were late. I hate tardiness. ????

Again, going into this, I knew that there was a 50-50 shot that the PSMA PET scan would be able to pick up anything at my PSA level, and it appears that I fell into the “we didn’t see anything” category:

ONCOLOGIC FINDINGS:

History of prostate cancer status post prostatectomy with biochemical recurrence with:


– No focal PSMA-uptake in the prostatectomy bed.
– No PSMA-PET/CT evidence for distant metastasis.

The fact that they didn’t see anything in my prostate bed and elsewhere is both a good and bad thing. Good, in that whatever cancer may be there was so small that the scan couldn’t pick it up. Bad, in that the scan wasn’t sensitive enough to pick things up at my PSA level (0.22 ng/ml).

As a reminder, I’m just looking at the printout of my results online, and am not yet in a conversation with my doctor about the results, so I’m a little reluctant to come to too many conclusions about some other comments in the report without the benefit of his expertise. There was a section labeled:

INDETERMINATE FINDING:

– Focus of intense PSMA-uptake at the left lung lower lobe (fused 4-263) without CT correlate, likely a PSMA injection thrombus, not favored to represent metastatic disease. Attention on follow up.

I added the emphasis above, but it’s something that raises an eyebrow and probably warrants further monitoring or investigation as suggested. That’s something I’ll speak with the doctor about.

Speaking of speaking with the doctor, when I had my appointment in early November, we agreed to schedule a follow-up appointment to go over the scan results in January. However, the first available appointment wasn’t until the first week of February. I’m going to work on moving that earlier, even if it’s a call-in appointment instead of an in-person appointment.

*****

Am I happy with the results? Sort of.

We know from my rising PSA that there’s cancer somewhere in some quantity. While this may be a “false negative,” it’s nice to know that I didn’t light up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. That would have been bad.

Will this cause me to run to the radiation oncologist to start salvage radiation right away based on my PSA alone? Nope. I have another PSA test in January, and if that stays in the 0.21-0.22 range, I’ll be content to continue my monitoring. But if it shoots up drastically, that may cause me to reconsider.

Was it worth $3,300 out-of-pocket? I don’t know. I’m going to get back to you on that one. ????

So that’s my PSMA PET scan story, and I’m sticking to it.

If I don’t post again before Christmas, I hope you have a great holiday season!

Be well!

This post originally appeared on Dan’s Journey Through Prostate Cancer on December 16, 2021. It is republished with permission.