AboutNeha Dahiya MD Expertise I can help patients understand their lab report results, help them with queries regarding what pretest preparation is required. How often a follow up test needs to be done. What does a particular tissue biopsy report mean in everyday English. I can explain the biopsy or cytology procedure. I can deal with Histopathology / cytology / clinical pathology and clinical chemistry queries. Helping in this manner will be my contribution to the community.
Experience I am a pathologist and director of clinical laboratory services. I have been a practicing pathologist for last 9 years in a 350 bed multi specialty hospital laboratory.
Organizations Indian association of pathologists and microbiologists.
MIAC - Member International Academy of Cytology
International association of Pathologists - indian division
Indian association of Cytology
Question I am new to this format and recently submitted a query that was misunderstood as a "homework question".This time I will offer some context.My husband underwent a prostatectomy but his PSA never went to 0-in fact it continues to rise.We are sorting through his tx options and have been offered a prostascint scan.Info about this test is limited and often dated.I have read that the results are somewhat unreliable and it can cause an antibody response that can interfere with future PSA tests.I have been unable to find info about what other tests it may interfere with,if there are other readily available ways to monitor the PSA level, and what tests my husband may already have had that could increase the liklihood of having the HAMA response.Any info you could provide or resources you can recommend would be much appreciated.
Answer Hello Patricia:
Rising PSA levels after prostatectomy an d treatment indicate recurrence of cancer. However this is also debatable based on the level of PSA. If the levels are 0.2 ng/ml and more it is recurrence.
Now the question is to decide if this is due to local recurrence in the region of prostate or is it due to spread to bones or lymphnodes.
Prostascint scan is good for local recurrence detection.
CT abdomen and pelvis with and without contrast will be useful for evaluating lymph nodes. MRI is also useful for local recurrence and lymphnodes
If PSA is very high >10 then NUC Tc-99m bone scan whole body will help detect bone metastasis.
The antibody used in prostascint scan can cause interference with future PSA tests as well as other immunoassays.
It is for the surgeon and radiologist to decide the best course of action to diagnose and the treatment will follow from there.
I hope this is useful. I apologize for assuming that the question first time was not patient care related.
