64 Year Old Husband with PSA Increase

July 5, 2006

I am new to this group. My husband is 64. His psa in November 2005 was

1.8 which is fairly standard for him. In June 2006, he decided to go

to the VA (Meds are cheaper from them) and had a series of blood work

done by their lab. His psa came back as 2.77. Long story short, we had

it retested by our regular lab and it came back as 2.6. So,

essentially, it went up from 1.8 in November to 2.6 in June, using the

same lab.

Our primary doc (who has only been in town seven months – another long

story) seemed to panic (IMO) and immediately sent to a urologist.

Both docs did a DRE and felt nothing. The primary doc said it might be

a little enlarged and the urologist said it was average size for a 64

year old man. The urologist immediately scheduled a biopsy (currently

scheduled for July 12).

Question #1: Is it normal protocol to do a biopsy after one psa

increase? From what I've read, they normally look for two psa

increases, over some period of time, before they do a biopsy.

Question #2: After the 1.8 reading in November, my husband's blood

pressure medication was changed to one containing a diuretic

(Avalide). This is the only medication change in the November-June

timeframe. I've done some searches and have not come up with any

conclusive relationship between diuretics and increased psa but I did

come up with something indicating a relationship between diuretics and

BPH.

Bottom line: We have no faith in this urologist and will be scheduling

an appointment with another urologist shortly. In the meanwhile, does

anyone have any thoughts on my two questions above?

Thank you, in advance.

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