Does Ivermectin Reduce the Prostate PSA Value?

Executive Summary

• Many people are concerned about their PSA value.
• In this article, I cover both the test and the impact of Ivermectin on the PSA value and on the prostate cancer.

Introduction

This topic deals with the impact of Ivermectin on PSA values.

 

Evaluating The PSA Test and Value

Before we discuss the effectiveness of ivermectin versus the PSA value, we first need to understand the test without the financial bias in its presentation by the medical establishment.

Subscriber Quote

This quote is from an email from a subscriber.

I want to let you know (name removed) PSA came back up from 48.2 to 77.6 based on his last test on 2/29/24.

He has been taking a PSA test every two weeks.

The lowest was a month ago at 29.2. There are so many factors to think about as why these numbers keep changing.

I have not been able to pin point what cause the drop to 29.2 and what caused it to go back up.

And this comment from another subscriber.

We had a PSA test ordered for my husband, and I was hoping to see the numbers drop so we could be a testament to the effectiveness of these medicines. Unfortunately, his PSA jumped up by 3 points.

As you will see in this article, there is no place on our website where we propose that the PSA tests or PSA value will decline due to hypermectin.

About The Prostate-Specific Antigen Test

PSA stands for prostate-specific antigen test. Oncologists typically promote the PSA test. However, once you begin to research the PSA test, its outcome for patients is far more ambiguous than presented in doctors’ offices. This quote is from the article Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test.

 

Important Point #1: The Overstatement of the Benefit of PSA Tests

The blood level of PSA is often elevated in people with prostate cancer, and the PSA test was originally approved by the FDA in 1986 to monitor the progression of prostate cancer in men who had already been diagnosed with the disease.

Beginning around 2008, as more was learned about both the benefits and harms of prostate cancer screening, a number of professional medical organizations began to caution against routine population screening with the PSA test. Most organizations recommend that individuals who are considering PSA screening first discuss the risks and benefits with their doctors.

What happened, which is somewhat obscured by the wording to mitigate the impact on the credibility of the medical establishment, is that the tests were significantly overestimated in their predictive ability and impact on the patient’s health.

However, they continue to be the industry standard because they are so effective at putting people into the cancer treatment pipeline. The ability of the PSA test to correlate with cancer is still a hotly debated topic, but only outside of oncology offices. Within oncology offices, oncologists present it as highly predictive.

PSA testing’s ability to drive revenues for oncologists and cancer centers is not disputed. The PSA test has been one of the most revenue-driving cancer diagnostics ever developed.

 

Important Point #2: Accuracy Questions Regarding the Test?

This quote is from the article Is PSA reliable?

Noncancerous conditions, including benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), or an enlarged prostate, and prostatitis, can raise PSA levels. In fact, studies have shown that about 70% to 80% of men with an elevated PSA who have a biopsy do not have cancer.

Conversely, the PSA test doesn’t detect all cancers. About 20% of men who have cancer also have a normal PSA (less than 4 ng/ml), so the test may give some men a false sense of security.

This quote is from the article Study shows poor reliability of prostate cancer test.

The standard blood test used to screen for prostate cancer, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, already considered to be inaccurate, is failing to identify eight of every 10 men aged under 60 who later have prostate cancer diagnosed, a study shows. The authors found that lowering the threshold from 4.0 to 2.6 ng/ml would double the rate of detection of cancer to 36%, although it would also increase the number of false positives.

Reliability Questions Regarding the Test

There is now a growing list of unreliable aspects of the test. The fact that this test was rolled out so broadly and became a well-known test without any of the factors I have discussed being emphasized reveals a significant lack of oversight on the part of the cancer establishment. The remarkable aspect is that this quote originates from the National Cancer Institute. This is a very core entity in the cancer industry.

The fact that the NCI is acknowledging these issues indicates how flawed the story is regarding the PSA test.

As I have said several times in this article, oncologists do not treat PSA tests as if they have these limitations and tend to present them as highly reliable and highly predictive of prostate cancer.

In addition, various factors can cause someone’s PSA level to fluctuate. For example, the PSA level tends to increase with age, prostate gland size, and inflammation or infection. A recent prostate biopsy will also increase the PSA level, as can ejaculation or vigorous exercise (such as cycling) in the 2 days before testing. Conversely, some drugs—including finasteride and dutasteride, which are used to treat BPH—lower the PSA level.

This means that the score is highly variable.

If repeated tests are given at spaced intervals over time, several factors unrelated to the baseline PSA level can alter the result.

This can naturally lead a person to believe that a treatment they are using is effective (or not) in reducing the PSA level, when in fact the variance is related to some other factor.

The Test is “Not Great?” – As in Not that Predictive?

Important Comment #1: PSA Test is “Not That Great?”

In a rare admission at the four-minute mark in this video, the physician to the left interjects as the other physician is speaking about how it is the only test that they have before biopsy when he states, “even though it’s not that great.”

Important Comment #2: Frequent Testing is Not Advised?

At the 6-minute mark, the physician in the middle proposes that it’s not a good idea to continually get PSA tests because there is a natural variance in the tests, and that can lead to an overemphasis on prostate cancer and can also result in overtreatment.

What is interesting is that the way these physicians discuss the variants of the PSA test does not seem to be communicated to our subscribers, who frequently email me, concerned that their PSA score has increased in a recent test.

It should be understood that the way these physicians are speaking is not the way that oncologists that you will see will generally explain the PSA tests.

 

Important Point #3: The Net Benefit of Prostate Cancer Screening

The following quote is from the article Screening for Prostate Cancer: A Review of the ERSPC and PLCO Trials.

The PLCO investigators found that men who underwent annual prostate cancer screening had a higher incidence of prostate cancer than men in the control group but had about the same rate of deaths from the disease.

Overall, the results suggest that many men were treated for prostate cancers that would not have been detected in their lifetime without screening.

Consequently, these men were exposed unnecessarily to the potential harms of treatment.

This indicates that patients are receiving cancer treatment, but not receiving a benefit from the cancer treatment. The more damage that is caused to the body, in addition to the costs and time consumption from going through prostate treatment.

Conclusion

We have numerous articles that explore the benefits of Ivermectin (and Fenbendazole/Mebendazole) concerning cancer treatment. However, we make no claims about the effect of these drugs on the PSA value, as the entire topic of PSA values is quite tricky. However, more importantly, the research clearly shows that Ivermectin, Mebendazole, and Fenbendazole are effective against cancer. This evidence is spread throughout our many articles on these topics at the site, so I will refer you to the article indexes on each of these topics, which you can find at our main Article Index.

Therefore, if one is interested in preventing or treating cancer, particularly prostate cancer, these drugs are worth considering.

It’s not clear what the relationship is between PSA values and prostate cancer, and that is before all of the test’s shortcomings are evaluated. I have never had a PSA test (I am 54 years old), and I never plan to.

• I more likely than not have some cancerous cells in my prostate. However, I also take ivermectin every day as a general preventative. Our calculator provides a personalized preventative dose estimate.
• I also follow a list of items published at our subscription site (List of Recommended Items to Help Prevent and Fight Cancer) to improve my immune system, which is critical to preventing cancer growth.

As I discuss in the article Does Prostate Screening Improve Patient Outcomes?, simply getting a PSA test raises health concerns. However, I do want to prevent cancer, both prostate and every other kind of cancer, and so I do take ivermectin daily.