Gabby Logan has questioned why Kenny Logan still needs blood tests after having his prostate removed and being given the all-clear in February 2023. Speaking on The Midpoint podcast, she said it is hard to understand how prostate cancer can recur after surgery, then pushed for a clearer explanation of what follow-up actually looks like.
The Midpoint and Kenny Logan
54-year-old Kenny Logan was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2022 after a Prostate Specific Antigen test, despite having no concerning symptoms. His PSA levels were higher than normal before the diagnosis, and surgery followed to remove his prostate. That sequence leaves a practical question for anyone watching a similar path: the operation ends one phase of treatment, but it does not end surveillance.
Gabby said: “I think this is the thing that people find difficult to understand, if you've had your prostate removed, how you can get a recurrence of prostate cancer?” She also said: “And that is, you know, I know from Kenny's experience, every six months, he's got one coming up, he has to do [blood tests]. I'm like how? Because if you haven't got a prostate, how are you going to get prostate cancer?”
Professor Vaibhav Modgil on surveillance
Professor Vaibhav Modgil, a Consultant Urological Surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary, replied on the podcast that the follow-up depends on the disease in the first place. “No, it is and it isn't, I'm not a cancer pathologist or a cancer specialist, but the entire idea of surveying people in terms of doing blood tests, scans, etc also hinges very closely on the kind of disease they had in the first place.”
He added: “Not all prostate cancers are the same, so if you've got a localised prostate cancer and it's been definitively treated with surgical margins and negative, and depending on the initial grade of your prostate cancer, you're likelihood of reoccurence might be drastically different to an individual who, for example, had a high grade prostate cancer, but none the less they all require surveillance,”. In practical terms, that means follow-up is not a formality; it is a structured watch for signs that disease may have returned.
What recurrence means after surgery
Prostate Cancer UK defines recurrent prostate cancer as cancer that returns after treatment intended to cure it. The charity says it can come back even after the gland has been removed because microscopic cancer cells may have been left behind or because cancer cells had already spread further than the prostate before surgery.
For men who have had their prostate removed, the blood tests Gabby Logan referred to are part of that surveillance. The next step in Kenny Logan's case is another blood test, and that is the point: the all-clear in February 2023 ended treatment, but it did not end monitoring.
