February 21, 2025
Well, Good news and bad news. While the new lesion was benign, and there is no signs of metastatic activity, although microscopically anything could be happening. Unfortunately, four random cores in the vicinity of the original tumor were 3/4. Three of those were 10% Grade 4 and one was 20% Grade 4. The other eight were negative. My urologist says that I am pretty much in the same place I was last year.
So Grade 4 is still present, but it’s impossible to say whether or not I have more of it, even with one at 20%. Two samples have entered the nerve which is never good, both on the same side as the original lesion.
I expect to continue the plan of AS. There is apparently some progression. It seems slow, but I am still trying to assess that. I will be 70 in May, and I have made it another year without much in the way of side effects. The only thing I have experienced was a weak stream, which has improved over the year. Too bad the Grade 4 didn’t disappear. I need to up my game, to keep it at bay.
February 11, 2025
Biopsy #2 completed. It went uneventfully, with the exception that I now have to deal with the first week of short term after-effects as well as 3 months of long term after-effects. My urologist did the biopsy this time, instead of one of his associates, so during the bedside pre-biopsy chat, I asked again about sampling the missing lesion. He said that the MRI driven fusion biopsy cannot target a tumor that is no longer there, but that the 12 additional samples taken that do not target the new, smaller lesion, will sample from the general area where the original tumor was located.
I got the call from his office today, and we set up a February 20th date to have a face-to-face discussion with my urologist about the biopsy results. Stay tuned. I am cautiously optimistic.
February 1, 2025
February began in the wee hours of the morning with a lengthy discussion with another Active Surveillance guy who has been in AS for many years. He has been doing diet and supplements for a lot longer than I have, and so I had a lot to talk about.
What I learned from him included a ursolic acid mouthwash that puts UA more directly into the bloodstream. He also takes piperine he described as biopiperine for bioavailability.
He was not really doing anything with pomegranate seed oil and its punicic acid, so I dug up what I considered the most important research article on punicic acid on my site.
I will use this occasion to review my PSO Strategy (the focus of which is punicic acid) again to clarify and improve my thinking. And so is the nature of University-level research science paper reading. Each re-reading benefits from the knowledge learned between readings.
Here is the graph that I like to focus on.
This graph shows how punicic acid (PunA) kills metastatic prostate cancer. All 6 PC viability curves meet at two points, where they are all alive, point (0,1) top left, and where they are all dead, point(100,0) bottom right.
PC3 dies most quickly, where half are dead (IC50 means half are dead) at a very low concentration of 1.1 µM ( 1.1 millionth of a Mole per liter). The table to the right lists the PunA concentrations for IC50 for all six cancer cell lines. On the graph, that is the point where “Relative cell viability” = 0.5. Each curve passes through the height of 0.5 at different PunA concentrations. Those points of concentration for each curve are listed in the table. Note the x-axis is logarithmic. Find the definitions of the six cell lines and some details at the bottom of this post.
What does this graph say about my PC?
After a year of evidence collecting multiple PSA tests, 2 MRIs, and 1 biopsy, my Urologist says my case has significantly improved, and that he thinks, “Whatever you are doing mimics if I had prescribed you Finasteride. But since you are not taking Finasteride, whatever you are doing is the reason for the improvement. And Finasteride only shrinks Grade 3 PC, not Grade 4”.
Something shrank my first tumor to undetectable. That one was 10% Grade 4, 90% Grade 3. I have/had? so-called 3-4 on the Gleason Scale. Did I really kill off some Grade 4 PC?
So, what part of “what I am doing” is the most effective? That’s a good question and this graph makes me think is has a lot to do with with punicic acid. If I can get to 30 µM, I think I would be killing a lot of PC.
There doesn’t seem to be a blood test for punicic acid. And I am also taking a dozen or two other things, some specifically thought to help punicic acid do its work, and others supported by their own research. Let’s see what data comes in from the February 7th biopsy.
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