Dan Hopkins’ life changed during a routine physical at Tidelands Health three years ago.
His visit with family physician Dr. Sean Nguyen included a prostate-specific antigen test, a standard blood test used to monitor prostate health. Hopkins, 69, had taken the same test for 15 years without much difference. This time, the test results jumped sharply compared to the previous year.
“It turns out I had cancer of the prostate,” Hopkins says.
Dr. Nguyen quickly sent Hopkins for a follow-up urological exam.
“In situations like this, we always have to decide: Do we monitor it or get a second opinion,” Dr. Nguyen says. “It never hurts to have a second opinion.
A second opinion can also produce relief one way or another after the anxiety of a high PSA test.
“I might not be here today,” Hopkins says.
“Knowing is kind of a fearful thing for patients,” Dr. Nguyen says. “But catching a problem earlier is better than catching it late when problems can be worse or spread.”
About seven months after the diagnosis was confirmed in 2023, doctors removed Hopkins’ prostate via an outpatient surgery. Over the next two years, follow-up checkups showed no sign that the prostate cancer had spread.
“The good part about prostate cancer is that it doesn’t spread as quickly as some others do,” Hopkins says.
However, one follow-up showed a troubling result: cancer in his bladder.
The good news is that doctors caught the bladder cancer early, in part because Hopkins’ prostate cancer had been caught and treated quickly.
“It all goes back to three years ago,” Hopkins says. “If I hadn’t been getting follow-up checks on the prostate cancer, then the bladder cancer might have been found later. And that would have been far more dangerous, because that one does spread and it’s aggressive.”
Without Dr. Nguyen’s early call on Hopkins’ PSA test results, things might have gone far differently.
“I might not be here today,” Hopkins says.