Nurse Practitioner Lauren Engel explains how PSA results can cause significant anxiety for patients, emphasizing the importance of helping them understand what rising PSA levels may mean and reassuring them that effective treatment options and next steps are available.
Lauren Engel:
We have this PSA. People's days are made or crushed based off the PSA that you tell them. I walk into a visit sometimes and before you can even say good morning, they say, "Well, what's my PSA?" And I think it's hard in a way, because so much is put on this PSA, and even through diagnosis and treatment, everyone's talking about your PSA. That's how patients sometimes get diagnosed. It's when we know that they need treatment. So there's so much put on that.
What I try to tell people is that even if your PSA is up, there's a lot of good treatments that we have for you. And so I think sometimes if you think in the worst case scenario, which is my PSA is up, what am I going to do about it? And if I can explain to them and kind of set the expectation, well, if next time your PSA is up, this is what I would do, we'd probably get a scan, see what that looked like. So I think managing what would come next, because I think at the end of the day it's the unknown that really causes the anxiety for folks. But if you can give them some sort of expectation of what's coming, I think that can sometimes be helpful.