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Dean Skylar's avatar

I met with Dr Spratt after reading this article. There is a high likelihood he will be providing my radiation treatment and working with my medical oncologist going forward. Thanks for the referral.

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Keith R. Holden, M.D.'s avatar

Hi Dean. So glad you connected with Dr. Spratt. He's one of the best in the country in his field.

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PATRICK GARCIA's avatar

Dr. Holden, there is a lot of talk about androgen deprivation and how that slows progression, but if you have a man that has PC contained and is working on his health, losing weight, resistance training etc, these activities will induce a higher testosterone level and does. How does this work in this situation, because the raise in Test is natural, but if T promotes PC growth, what is the advantage of all this? Is there a natural state of Testosterone increase that doesn't progress PC progression? Based on this thought process, I'm inclined to question these tests that are still being built on this deprivation model.

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Keith R. Holden, M.D.'s avatar

Hi Tom. I understand your frustration with the messaging out there. Prostate cancer is a complex topic that doctors and scientists don't fully understand. The main reason is that PCa is so incredibly heterogeneous. Some men have low-grade tumors that won't progress despite "high" levels of testosterone in their bodies. Other men have rapid progression. And other men have PCa that isn't driven by testosterone, such as men with neuroendocrine tumors. Some studies even show that certain men with low testosterone (hypogonadism) are at higher risk for developing PCa. What we do know is that a majority of men with high-risk tumors, especially those with high levels of androgen receptors, do respond positively to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). This ArteraAI test helps identify men, based on their pathology slides, who don't necessarily need ADT, and that's a blessing for the third of men who might otherwise be put on ADT if not for the ArteaAI testing. The ArteraAI test has high level 1B evidence (meaning studied in adequately powered randomized clinical trials and shown to be helpful). Level 1B is not that common in guidelines for testing in PCa, so it is a good test for a certain percentage of men, but not all. It's a good start.

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PATRICK GARCIA's avatar

No worries but I'm Patrick. Thanks for getting back to me.

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Tom Rogers's avatar

I could use that right now. My G6 is now showing a little bit of G7 (3+4) 🥺

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Tom Rogers's avatar

Of course it is not available for NY state patients 😡

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