PSA .02 ng after EBRT and luprolide 1.5 years ago.

[Chasu]

Up til now it has been .01 or undetectable. Gleason 4+3

[Magnus1964]

sounds like your doing OK.

[timotur]

Keep testing every three months and see if a trend develops. It may fluctuate over time after radiation as there are still prostate cells.

[Tall_Allen]

Biochemical (PSA) recurrence is nadir+2.0, so you have quite a way to go before you'd even suspect a recurrence. You still have a prostate, so any PSA below 0.5 is good and not at all suspicious. You may wish to use a less sensitive PSA test.

[Horse12888 in reply to Tall_Allen]

TA: I thought it was 0.2

[Tall_Allen in reply to Horse12888]

No - after primary radiation it's nadir+2.0

[Cooolone]

Undetectable you are still! Rejoice, have a party, live it up! You're doing great!

Best Regards

[Don_1213]

Sigh... the tyranny of misunderstood PSA tests.

Story I've told here a number of times..

For about a year after completion of 45 radiation treatments and 18 months of ADT, my PSA was "undetectable" on a test with a minimum sensitivity of 0.10.

It then went up to 0.11 - and my MD's (all 3 of them) said don't worry about it, it means nothing. It slowly drifted up to 0.15 then 0.17. I was surprised when one reached 0.25, but not overly concerned - there is a phenomenon called "PSA Bounce", About 20% of guys receiving the treatment you (and I had) experience it. It typically happens about 12-18 months after the conclusion of treatment, as your testosterone starts to recover. I have numerous papers stashed away telling about it - but the takeaway is - it will possibly go down again (mine did - it's back under 0.17 now), it may bounce around a bit (mine has) but for men experiencing this - a recurrence of cancer is LESS likely than men who didn't experience it.

What causes it? The jury is out on that. None of the papers I've read have come up with a solid theory, but they all came to the same conclusions: it may be a positive thing (less recurrences) or at worst a neutral thing (no real difference with guys who don't experience it.)

There is a reason savvy radiation oncologists don't ask for the ultra-sensitive test, and the reason is patients panic when they see numbers change, even though the numbers are so small as to be insignificant and the changes are even smaller. So - my NJ based advice: forgeddaboutit.

BTW - lab results are not written in stone. My experience of having 2 PSA tests done on blood taken at the same time, and done by the same lab and machine and lab technician, and getting two significantly different readings (0.17 and 0.24) pretty much show that you can't take the readings as gospel. So again - forgeddaboutit.

If it was taken at the same time - a plot of your testosterone vs PSA might be revealing to you. Mine has been.

[conbio in reply to Don_1213]

Thanks - good info I will stash away