Hello and thanks for your post,

I am sorry to hear that you are having investigations and I can understand that this may not be what you were expecting.

The cancer nurse that you heard from probably works very closely with your team of doctors including the doctor who reviewed your MRI.

A doctor who specialises in imaging scans gives the MRI scan a score based on the results. This score helps your doctor decide on the next step and whether you need to have a biopsy. This is where your doctor takes a sample of your prostate gland.

This score is called the Likert or PI-RAD system. It estimates the risk that an area seen on the MRI scan may be a cancer or not. The score is from 1 to 5.

You can read more about this here

Once the doctors have got the results of your biopsy the next step would be to discuss your case in an MDT (Multi Disciplinary Team) meeting. All the doctors and Specialist nurses involved in your care meet to discuss your case and work out next steps. Every suspected cancer case is discussed in this meeting but they sometimes only meet once a week to discuss the prostate cases.

Each patient is treated very individually but the process may take several weeks to enable all the tests to be back and reported on.

I am not sure the benefit of going privately now that you are in the system and due to have some further investigations. Sometimes though, it can help to speed the process up. Often NHS doctors also have a private practice so you could ring the urology department to see the urologist that you are under to see if this is the case.

We can't recommend a particular doctor but you may find it helpful to look at this link to private health care here

I hope that this has made it a bit clearer. 

If you would find it helpful to speak to one of the helpline nurses then you are welcome to do so.

Our number is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and we are here Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm.

All the best,

Catherine