John Tesh Talks Of Battling Prostate Cancer That Doesn’t Produce PSA

On November 12, award-winning television and radio host and musician John Tesh emceed the public launch of Only Possible Here, The Campaign to End Cancer The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s largest comprehensive philanthropic campaign in the institution’s nearly 85-year history. Tesh has received treatment for prostate cancer at MD Anderson patient. (Photo: © Michelle Watson/CatchLight Gr)

© Michelle Watson/CatchLight Gr

Here’s a PSA about PSA—meaning a public service announcement about prostate specific antigen. Although checking the PSA levels in your blood is a routine way of screening for prostate cancer, just because such levels are within normal limits doesn’t completely rule out the possibility of having prostate cancer.

Musician and former Entertainment Tonight host John Tesh learned this back in 2015 when he was diagnosed with a rare form of prostate cancer that doesn’t produce PSA and told that he might have just 18 months to live. That began a rocky journey for the composer of what was NBC’s iconic NBA theme song throughout the 1990s “Roundball Rock.” But Test eventually found some rocks—his wife actress Connie Selleca, his doctors at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer and his faith—to help him get well past those 18-months to where he is now, one decade later.

A Physical Exam Led To Tesh’s Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

Currently 73 years of age, Tesh was 63 years of age ten years ago back in 2015 because that’s how time and math work. His busy life as a touring musician and radio host as well helping handle his wife’s mother’s health issues had delayed his routine annual physical exam for about half a year. “My PSA was like 0.4 for five years, which meant that there was nothing going on when you look at the typical history of anybody’s history,” Tesh recalled. “But the doctor did a digital rectal exam, and he said, whoa, wait a second, there’s something going on.” Eventually imaging and a biopsy put more than a finger on what’s going on as he had stage III prostate cancer that the urologist in the Los Angeles area deemed inoperable. That’s when Tesh got the whole 18-months-to-live prognosis from his doctor.

“I ended up with a rare form of prostate cancer that doesn’t make any PSA,” Tesh explained and indicated that the cancer had a Gleason score of nine with possible scores ranging from a six to a 10. And while being dressed to the nines may be a good thing, a Gleason score of nine is not. The Gleason score is how pathologists grade the aggressiveness of the cancer based on the prostate cancer cells that they see from the biopsy and how different they look from normal prostate cells. The higher the grade, the more abnormal the cells look and the worse the prognosis, as I’ve detailed previously in Forbes.

Meanwhile, staging of the cancer is how far it’s spread in the body and can go from I to IV, with higher numbers meaning further spread. “Gleason nine and the cancer had gotten outside the capsule [surrounding the prostate] and in my lymph nodes so the doctors in Los Angeles said we don’t operate on anything that virulent,” said Tesh. His doctor suggested that Tesh get his affairs in order, which can’t be a good thing to hear. Rather than accept this fate, though, Tesh continued to read and learn more about prostate cancer and reach out to different experts including the author of “Patrick Walsh’s book on Prostate Cancer Surviving Prostate Cancer.”

Eventually, he did find someone who was willing to do the surgery and flew to the East Coast to get a radical prostatectomy. While the surgery itself was considered a success, as Tesh related, “I had all kinds of complications and then for the next couple of years, there were lymph node salvages, the cancer came back. They thought it was it was mutating. It closed down my right kidney. I lost that kidney.”

Tesh’s Wife Connie Sellecca Has Played An Important Role In Tesh’s Postate Cancer Journey

During the initial years of his diagnosis, Tesh went through moments thinking, “I’m done. There’s nothing that’s going to help me here. It was a lot of pain. I just sort of gave up. It was horrible depression.” That’s until “my wife came into my recording studio one day and she just said, ‘Listen, if you’re not gonna fight, then I’m not gonna fight with you,’ and she was serious.”

Tesh then responded to her, saying, “’I need a minute.’ I said something worse than that.” Tesh went on to describe what happened next, “I got on a bicycle, I put some bags on a bicycle, and my microphone and my computer because I was still doing a radio show. And I just started riding along the coast of California. And I got about 100 miles up the coast that I called her up and said, ‘Can I come back now?’ And she said, ‘No, not until you hit 200.’” Tesh recalled, “So that that was a real watershed moment for me.”

Sellecca is also the one who in 2017 called the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to get Tesh’s prostate cancer managed and treated there. “Where I was in 2015, there may have been maybe 50 people who had my situation with non-PSA producing prostate cancer,” Tesh recalled. “When my wife had a friend who was on the board [at MD Anderson] and when we paid a visit [to MD Anderson], they had almost 1,200 people who had that situation.” Tesh credits the following with saving his life: “It’s the doctors, the surgeons, especially at MD Anderson, my wife and my faith.”

Tesh Has Been Traveling To MD Anderson For His Prostate Cancer Care

At MD Anderson, Tesh came under the care of Christopher Logothetis, M.D. a professor of genitourinary medical oncology and director of the Genitourinary Cancer Center and Prostate Cancer Research Program there. Logothetis then recommended Tesh have a urologic surgeon at MD Anderson, Brian Chapin, MD, perform robotic surgery to remove the suspicious lymph nodes. After this showed that the cancer had indeed gone to Tesh’s lymph nodes, Tesh then underwent four rounds of chemotherapy followed by ADT, as described by Gina van Thomme for MD Anderson’s CancerWise.

In this case ADT is not some kind of security company but instead stands for androgen deprivation therapy. Androgens are hormones like testosterone and dihydrotestosterone or DHT that are normally secreted by your testicles mainly, but also your adrenal glands. Since such androgens can promote the growth of prostate cancer cells, ADT is about either decreasing androgen levels in your body or keeping androgen from getting into prostate cancer cells. This can be done by removing the testicles or administering different types of medications.

Tesh Has Held Off On Radiation Therapy For His Prostate Cancer

The latest significant development in Tesh’s prostate cancer has been the finding that his cancer has subsequently spread again. “We went to Cedars [Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California] and because it looks like its cancer wasn’t gonna quit, and it was really just spreading everywhere,” Tesh related and went on to say, “The doctor was talking about ‘carpet bombing’ my pelvis with like 30 rounds of radiation and all of the contraindications and what functions I might lose and when he got to some of the big functions I wanted to keep you’re like ‘Will pause.’” Therefore, Tesh and his family chose to hold off on radiation therapy.

How Tesh Is Helping Others With Their Prostate Cancer Treatment

As mentioned earlier, Tesh’s prostate cancer has been unusual. While normal prostate cells produce certain levels of PSA, the most common types of prostate cancer produce higher levels thus allowing checking blood PSA levels to be a way of screening for prostate cancer. However, in some cases prostate cancer cells will not produce PSA. This can be the case, for example, with small cell prostate cancers that arise from the neuroendocrine cells of the prostate and constitute less than two percent of all prostate cancers. So it can be no small feat for a doctor who’s never seen such non-PSA producing prostate cancers to know what to do to treat a patient who has one of them.

Enter Tesh’s twin. Not a real human twin but a computer simulation twin known as a digital twin. “They’re creating digital twins of my situation, where they take my history, the data from that, and they could plug all that into something a doctor who’s treating somebody who has something like my condition years ago can use,” Tesh explained. He added that it could give the doctor and the patient “a jump start on the treatment.”

Peter WT Pisters, M.D., MHCM, the president of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, described to me how extensive this digital twins work is and how it is not limited to prostate cancer. Pisters talked about, “The possibility to end cancer being achievable at MD Anderson,” and “pushing the frontiers of scientific discoveries, advancing new treatments for patients with cancer.” Pisters also mentioned MD Anderson’s $2.5 billion comprehensive philanthropic campaign named “Only Possible Here, The Campaign to End Cancer,” which has already raised $1.9 billion. Tesh spoke at emceed an event on November 12, marking the public launch of this campaign.

Tesh’s Advice To Those Battling Prostate Cancer

When I asked Tesh about words of advice he might have for those battling prostate cancer, he responded, “Don’t fight the fight alone, do as much research as you can and find a place that specializes in your disease.” He added, “Without an advocate, you’re not going to have a great chance, I don’t think.” Tesh also emphasized, “A lot of folks that I know they only get one opinion. We always got three.” Then there’s something that has helped things work out for him, working out. “The number one thing for me I would have to say is just get in the gym,” he urged. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but that was the one thing that there was a big difference for me is that even with chemo and stuff, going into the bathroom and throwing up at the gym, I never stopped working out and that really kept me centered.”

Thus, Tesh has been offering his voice—a voice that many may readily recognize from TV and radio—to the fight against prostate cancer in more ways than one. Tesh spoke of gratefulness and “just thanking God for this journey because the chances of making it through this is based on my age and how virulent the disease was wasn’t good.” But the composer of “Roundball Rock,” which has returned to TV given NBC’s return to coverig the NBA, had some rocks around him. And that made all the difference.