The Unwelcome Guest

Ok calm down I’m not about to peg out, but I’ve just discovered that my PSA reading is up rather than on the smooth glide path down that I was counting on. I was at my quarterly meeting with the oncologist at Guy’s Cancer Centre when I was given the unwelcome news that the Unwelcome Guest has made a slight return.

But let’s put this into some perspective. The PSA blood test is a notoriously crude measurement but just about the only means available to check the state of prostate cancer particularly post-prostatectomy or in my case post-radiotherapy.

When the Unwelcome Guest was first diagnosed, my PSA level stood at 5.03. I was then put on hormone therapy and the dive down started. Within a month my PSA stood at 2.61. Six months later, in June, it was 0.8. Following radiotherapy last Autumn, a test in December revealed my PSA to be virtually undetectable at 0.07.

For it to be entirely undetectable it has to fall to 0.03 or lower and that of course was what I was hoping for, but the Unwelcome Guest had other ideas. Now I’m told the little bugger has bounced back up ever so slightly to 0.1. In itself this may not be serious, and doctors recognise something called the PSA bounce, with the numbers fluctuating, following radiotherapy. Hopefully this will correct itself, but if it continues to climb and were it to reach 2.0 then other medical options would have to be explored.

I can’t deny this was something of a shock as I was pretty convinced that while still on hormone therapy and following radiotherapy to misquote Yazz and The Plastic Population ‘The only way was down.’ But that’s the Unwelcome Guest for you; full of little surprises.

Prostate cancer that comes back is called a recurrence and happens in 1 in 3 men after treatment for early prostate cancer, but we are a long way from that and anyway if those are the odds on the table I’ll take ‘em.

My next appointment at Guy’s cancer theme park is in September and as you might imagine I’ll be paying pretty close attention to the scores on the doors. In the meantime, I’ll be doing what I’ve learnt to do since Autumn 2017 when I was diagnosed and live in the moment. Nothing bad is going to happen to me in the short term, we have a wonderful holiday to look forward to and then come September we’ll take a look at the lay of the land.

The war on cancer

Last week the newspapers were back to declaring war on cancer. Let’s hope it’s more successful than the war on terror. But this was welcome news; a new cancer hub known as the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) is set to be located in south London close to the Royal Marsden Hospital. Researchers there will look at new ways to stop cancer cells from evolving and resisting chemotherapy. One of their goals is to ‘herd’ cells together and stop them from flourishing much in the way that drugs now control HIV. They are calling it the world’s first Darwinian drug discovery programme.

Senior scientists at the ICR argue that the traditional use of ‘shock and awe’ chemotherapy against cancer has failed because too often it has helped fuel ‘survival of the nastiest’ competition and evolution among cancer cells.

Dr Olivia Rossanese, head of biology, said: “We’re especially excited by the potential of APOBEC inhibitors, to slow down evolutionary diversity and drug resistance, and ensure our existing cancer drugs work for patients for much longer.”

Inhibitors are being designed to stop the action of a molecule called APOBEC to reduce the rate of mutation in cancer cells, slow down evolution and delay resistance. These drugs should become available within the next ten years.