Statin impact on PSA level

[Teddy28]

My recurrent prostate cancer is tracked by PSA level and over the past 6 months my PSA level has leveled off to around 2.3. March and June quarterly numbers were identical, and the increase from Dec to March was smaller than expected (0.2 vs 0.5). I was pleasantly surprised with these results but now wonder if my starting 10 mg of Crestor (rosuvatstatin) last November is responsible for this. I could stop it, as my cholesterol levels are not that high, and test this hypothesis. If the drug depresses PSA, wouldn't it still show an increase, rather than level off?

[Currumpaw]

Hey Teddy28!

Why experiment? Did you know that Dr. Charles "Snuffy" Meyers prescribed statins and Dr. Klotz has discussed statins? Use your search bar. Atorvastatin is the commonly used statin prescribed for men with prostate cancer as it and statins of it's ilk act the same. There is another group of statins with a different formulation that don't have the same effect or as good an effect on prostate cancer. There will be those who denigrate statins for this use but the doctors I mentioned have international reputations. I read that it was Dr. Klotz who suggested that Gleason grades 2 through 6 all act about the same. Why not eliminate grades 2 through 5? His suggestion was taken and that is why grade 6 is now the lowest.

Use your search bar and make your own decisions.

Currumpaw

[GeoffNoLongerAS]

Anecdotal. I was put on simvistatin in 2003 due to heart blockages. PSA was stable for about 5 years at 3.0. In 2008 diagnosed with g6 (3+3) PCa, started active surveillance. Next 11 years PSA started stable then slowly rose accelerating the last year or so to about 7.7. I was on simvistatin the entire time. New biopsy late 2019 showed cancer now g7 (4+3) and spreading, still contained.

Surgery early 2020 went well. As far as I could tell the simvistatin did not have any impact on my PSA. It was 3 prior to starting, 3 for many years prior to diagnosis, and 3 for the first half or so of AS. When it started to rise it started slowly, then began accelerating. I was on 40mg simvistatin the entire time.

[afab]

On Atorvastatin 10 years, Lupron 6.25 years and Xtandi 4.25 years; Gleason of 8 an 2 Mets. Cancer in durable remission since detection in 3/14.

[Hidden in reply to afab]

Great results ! I salute you ! 😎

[SimpleGuy]

There have been a few recent studies showing statins are good for PCa survival. Here's a summary of a most recent one:

cancerhealth.com/article/st...

[Teddy28]

Thanks for the comments - but I am still not clear if a statin would mask a small increase in PSA by reducing the amount of the increase. So if I expected a jump from PSA 2 to 2.5, but only got 2.2, might that be due to the statin? Or if I expected an increasing PSA trend, but instead the PSA value was constant, could that be due to statin? I am only referring to a 6 month period of time which is all the recent data I have.

[ImaSurvivor1]

Teddy, Regardless of whether your PSA result might have been slightly higher if you were not taking a statin, there are numerous other factors that could have caused the lesser increase than you expected. So, even if you could get a conclusive "yes" or "no" about the statin, you still would have no idea why it was slightly lower than expected. Good luck

[j-o-h-n]

Lots and lots of posts here regarding statin and psa... Do a search on "statin psa" on our site and you should get many hits.....

Good Luck, Good Health and Good humor.

j-o-h-n Thursday 07/16/2020 6:04 PM DST