question about prostate cancer….high Gleason’s / low PSA…..how can this be?

Yes you can have prostate cancer with normal PSA .

When tumors are described by way of its differentiation, i.e. well differentiated, poorly differentiated, what they are talking about is how close or how far away is from a normal one.
In prostate cancer the Gleason’s score is a way to describe how a cell is differentiated.
A Gleason 6 is a well-moderately differentiated cancer.
A Gleason 8 or above is a poorly differentiated cancer.
A well differentiated prostate cancer is harder to call for the pathologist than a moderately differentiated cancer because the well differentiated cell more closely resembles the normal prostate cell.
A poorly differentiated prostate cancer cell is an easy to call for the pathologist because its architecture is so far removed from how a normal cell looks…it is sometimes described as “bizarre.”
A poorly differentiated cell however can be tricky for the pathologist because it can be so bizarre looking that…

One Reply to “question about prostate cancer….high Gleason’s / low PSA…..how can this be?”

Ari says:

April 7, 2015 at 7:37 am

Hi
Just wondering how ‘normal’ it is for a 41 yo to be told that their DRE is abnormal, despite being told for the past 4-5 years that the prostate was soft on all previous exams, and despite always having a very low PSA (currently 0.35). 3T MRI imaging suggests ‘inflammation’ on prostate periphery, yet this would not account for a change in the prostate to feeling somewhat ‘hard’ and despite a smallish prostate 27cc? Have had ongoing urinary type symptoms for a number of years. Thanks

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