My doctors mention from time to time that their advice is ‘research-based’. There was science research that backed up what they were telling me.
When discussing my situation, some doctors mentioned that their advice was ‘research based’, meaning that there was science research that backed up what they were telling me.
Before my retirement, I got involved in some science research about enzymes. During this process, I learned how to access this science research, and now I wanted to use this relatively new-found skill to look at some prostate cancer research so that I might more intelligently discuss my situation with doctors.
Simply type ‘Scholar’ into the Google search bar, and press find. That brings you to Google Scholar as seen below:
From there it’s a relatively simple matter to get a list of research papers on a particular field of research. Just put whatever you are looking for into the Google Scholar search bar. That was the simple part. The harder part involves reading them and figuring out what they are saying. And there are so many of them. Looking through lots and lots of different research papers where most of them appear worthless, because the experiments do not apply to your personal situation, can be daunting and discouraging. I typed “Prostate Cancer Cures” into the search bar, and here is what came back:
You see? There were 57,600 research papers offered to look at. Too much to be looked at. So I knew I needed something more specific. I remember my urologist told me that at PSA 6.4 and PSA velocity doubling in less than year, that I better hurry up and just have my prostate removed since my MRI showed it was still localized and had not metastasized.
What my urologist said about PSA doubling stuck with me so I refocused on that and looked to learn more about what might help lengthening the time for PSA doubling.
Here are the top 7 results returned sorted by ‘Relevance’.
Review of the top Articles on PSA Doubling Times Lengthening
There are fewer studies, down to about 19,300, and that third one caught my eye.
The first one says “recurrent prostate cancer” and I don’t match that. So this paper I determine is useless for me and my current situation.
The second one says “after definitive surgery or radiotherapy”. Radiotherapy is radiation. I haven’t had my prostate removed by surgery or had radiation yet, so this paper is also out.
The third one appears to talk about slowing PSA doubling times. So this one is worth a closer look for sure.
So what you have seen here is an example of what I have done hundreds of times and spent countless hours on over the last 24 months which has resulted in dropping my PSA from 6.4 to 3.0, and changing my status from prostate removal candidate to Active Monitoring in remission.
Learn more about my results and the actions I took
Learn more about how to read a research paper.