This was to give anyone reading only a tiny fraction of how it feels to wait THREE WEEKS after seeing a PI-RADS score of 4 on my MRI. ![]() Yes, I intentionally put off discussing my biopsy results to the end of this article. For the optimist, maybe only a 40% chance or even a bit lower, depending on which study you read and whether or not the physician recommends treatment for Gleason grade 7 cancers. In plain English, based on the MRI results and on various studies I have read over the three longest weeks in my life, I figured I had about a 50-50 chance of having a clinically significant cancer that required some sort of treatment in the near future. PI-RADS 4 lesions also can be benign or less aggressive cancer with a Gleason score of 6 or less. Suffice to say that while a score of 4 does not usually indicate the presence of the most aggressive cancers (Gleason score of 8 or more), it often shows concerning cancers with a Gleason score of 7. On the other hand, a PI-RADS score of 5 is usually bad news and has a much higher correlation to cancer. The correlations for a score of 4 just aren’t as well established yet, and that’s why these studies continue. Thankfully, it seems that a PI-RADS score of 4 isn’t nearly as bad as a score of 5, but on a scale of 1-5, even a 4 feels pretty bad to a patient. There are a number of studies out there showing the correlation of PI-RADS to biopsy results for cancer. These might all be positive considerations for less invasive focal treatments. Plus, there was no indication it had spread beyond the prostate or into any other tissues within the prostate. Making lemonade out of lemons, the fact that only a single lesion was present was relatively good news. Things were not nearly as promising on this one: Ten years ago, I did not have any cancer, nor was any type of lesion or tumor indicated on the MRI. Armed with the MRI results, they were able to precisely target this tumor with two separate biopsy samples from different angles, along with 12 other random cores to see if cancer was present or had spread elsewhere in the prostate. ![]() A half-centimeter size lesion was shown on the MRI, and a random biopsy might miss that small of a lesion altogether. On the plus side, it also told me that I was doing the right thing. A score of 4 means that, “Clinically significant cancer is likely to be present.” The modified scale used by the NIH was only slightly better, “Moderately likely for prostate cancer.”Īs you can imagine, it considerably freaked me out to learn this in the hours of worrying while I waited to be taken for my biopsy procedure. ![]() For reference, ten years ago, my MRI report score was a PI-RADS 1, or “highly unlikely” to have clinically significant cancer. I was given a PI-RADS score of 4 on a scale of 5, with a 5 being most likely for cancer. Three weeks ago, I was shown my prostate TRUS MRI fusion results.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |