Part 3 - My personal experiences with Prostate Cancer

I met with my urologist a few days after that phone call and he gave me the details of the test. The biopsy had found that 7 of the 12 samples had cancer. Four of the sample had a Gleason score of 6 or 7. I had me some cancer.

A Gleason score is used to estimate prostate cancer’s aggressiveness — meaning its potential to grow and metastasize, or spread, to other parts of the body — using the Gleason grading system.  A tumor with cells that appear close to normal is assigned a low Gleason score (six or below); low-grade tumors are less likely to spread. A tumor with cells that appear clearly different from those of a normal prostate is assigned a high Gleason score (seven or above) and is more likely to spread.  The fact that they assigned four of my samples 6 or 7 indicated (to me) that they really weren’t quite sure about my cancer.

More about Gleason scores:

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/understanding-your-diagnosis/tests/understanding-your-pathology-report/prostate-pathology/prostate-cancer-pathology.html

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t pay much attention to a Gleason score – it seemed way too arbitrary and mumbo jumbo to me. I was more interested in what stage cancer I had. I remember a discussion I had with a insurance company nurse during my treatment. She asked me about my Gleason scores and I told her I wasn’t sure and I’d get back to her. I was working in the systems department at the time and I could take a peek at her notes. She was flabbergasted at my heretical attitude about Gleason scores.

My official stage at the time was T1c – non palpable (in a DRE test) but PSA elevated. I could live with that. I would later find that T1C was not quite accurate.