A controversial topic: does "artificial" lowering PSA exist?

This is a topic coming up here lots of times when speaking about PSA measures.

There are meds, off-label or ADT, but also supplements that may lower PSA.

If you have BPH PSA will be higher, let's say "artificially" high, or better, does not relate to PSA from cancer cells (even if it can be a mix of BPH + PCA).

But, besides BPH (and sex before measuring, etc) that may raise PSA ,if PSA goes down, in my mind this means that PSA signalling cancer cells are less active, so are less growing/spreading.

As for ADT, if you stop it, and these cells are not dead, PSA will increase, but during the time it was lower these cells, I imagine, were blocked, dormant, or whatever in the sense of less activity. If not ADT would not make any sense.

Why wouldn't it be the same with other drugs or supplements?

Others think it is possible that you get a false PSA reading, which would mean that these PSA signalling cancer cells are growing as before (taking meds, supplements) but have a decline in serum level.

Any valid research on that?

I am not speaking about PSA negative cancer cells .

[Tall_Allen]

PSA is a usually a good biomarker for progression, but it can be invalidated by interfering with its presence in plasma. When it indicates progression, as we want it to, it is because actively enlarging tumors dump more PSA into plasma due to leaky blood supply in tumors. You can screw this up by such things as increasing PSA adherence to the cell wall so that the antigen increases in the tumor but not in the plasma. It is also possible to screw it up by adding a substance that binds to the antibody binding site of the antigen or the antibody itself in the test kit. The FDA has issued a warning about biotin for masking PSA results.

fda.gov/medical-devices/saf...

ospdocs.com/resources/uploa...

[larry_dammit]

Beware of Avadart, it will lower your PSA ,then Pow your in trouble. 😡😡😡

[Hidden]

You are right to ask questions about PSA numbers, as this is abused. In a "steady state" it will correlate closely with how much cancer there is. For instance, if ADT "hormone" therapy drops the PSA from 100 down to 1, then a 99% reduction in cells is a "good-enough" conclusion (the treatment does not kill cancer - it just slows new growth). But if you look at PSA as a measure of how many cancer cells are being killed by the immune system, then the numbers make much more sense. I have found the PSA to be a highly accurate and consistent measure of what is going on. A proper interpretation of the PSA number makes the need for a biopsy and Gleason scores largely irrelevant for treatment choices, as the PSA changes are what counts.