Prostate cancer

Hello everyone.

Forgive my English (I'm Spanish). I commented the case of my father. In 2009 strong of prostate cancer surgery with da da Vinci robot method. State pT2c, node-negative, negative seminal vesicles, but positive margins. The psa before the operation was 13. Gleason Score was (4 +4). The psa after surgery was 0.02. At three months rose to 0.07, the following 3 months to 0.3, and the year was decided to apply 0.5.Se salvage radiotherapy with curative intent. Making his first check in March 2011, with a score of 0.006!. The doctor decides to give control to the next six months, in September 2011, resulting, psa <0.002. Now in March 2012, the psa to come out in 0.004. Has increased somewhat (although the analysis of urine has turned out a bit of infection). We can still be happy, that after 4 years of diagnosis have a psa of 0.004???, Or should we worry?

Thank you very much and I hope you forgive my bad English.

You have a very good result

- sometimes numbers bounce around a bit

- you are still - undetectable - and part of the Zero Club - (PSA <0.10 - there is no such thing as an absolute zero)

- be happy.

Bronson

Here's a little tidbit, over simplified, to help one understand the PSA results after treatment (an oldie from days gone by here). Consider them in units of value of pennies.

1/10 of a penny is .001 psa
1/2 a penny is .005 psa
1 penny is .01 psa
2 pennies is .02 psa
10 pennies (or a dime) is .10 psa
20 pennies is .20 psa (The second rise above .20 is the start of what is considered a BCR or breakout of PCa by several National Cancer organizations)
100 pennies (or a dollar) is 1.0 psa

As you can see, a 'jump' from .01 to .02 seems like doubling, but is still miniscule in relative increases terms, since jumps really don't start to count or indicate anything until at least 5 pennies or .05 psa and even then, there's variation in machines and calibrations in labs. So a penny difference here and there doesn't mean much if you consider that .20 or even .10 is indication of breakout. So, like the saying goes, it really doesn't pay to sweat the small stuff...lol

if you have a number that starts with two zero's go home a celebrate. The margin of fluctuation at that precise testing can vary.
thanks for sharing the great news.

peace to you
Dale

PSA of 0.002 and 0.004 is considered undetectable. It is dificult to find laboratories with that precision. I am spanish and I live in Spain, where did you
tested the PSA?

I wouldn't be concerned about a <0.002 to 0.004 increase till I got another test after six months.

MArc30,

As others have said 0.004 is an excellent number, every single guy on this forum would be thrilled to have such a low PSA.

These numbers constantly fluctuate, my PSA has been bouncing around for 5 years between 0.01 and 0.04, it's something I've gotten used to.

There really is no need to worry.

Mark,
PSA has a natural daily variation, especially if you are measuring it in the 1000s. The lab testing variences also play a large part when measurements are so small and may differ significantly. You would be concerned with a measurement to two decimal points that rose gradually over a period of time or a psa of one decimal point that was over .2.

Congrats on the super low psa result. Here's wishing him a lifetime of them