PSA Testing (Ultra sensitive)

My new doctor has started giving me one additional test along with my psa test. The additional test is how high my testosterone is. The reason being that any decrease or increase in your testosterone level would effect your psa score. Also, I'm almost 6 years out from my robotic surgery Gleason 3 + 4. Pre op 4.1 PSA Clean nodes Close but no positive margins. Every test I've being varying from .02 to 05. but it bounces around. No trend. The last one was .03 The doctor is fairly sure after this amount of time it's likely benign tissue left over from the surgery. If I had not been doing the ultra sensitive tests I would not have seen these results ping ponging around and I probably would have had a few nights of better sleep. All in all I'm not complaining of course.

Rusty,

Glad to see you've been doing so well with your PSA. I've never seen any mention of a direct correlation between testosterone levels and PSA. While my signature mentions my "free testosterone level" of 139.9 pg/ml, my total testsosterone is 1238 ng/dl which is pretty much off the charts. Having a high T level was one of several "wildcard" motivators for having my recent RALP so I am interested in any correlation data.

Did you get any sense as to why he looking at T now?...or at all. Thanks.

Likewise on the testosterone /psa connection. Prostate tissue either benign or cancerous are the only two that will cause psa to rise. And the benign only in small amounts. Reference the normal scale labs use in psa reports. Testosterone feeds PCA hence causing a psa rise, but this is not the same. Beau coup, most actually men have high t levels without ever being diagnosed and/or bothered with it. No connection!

Ultra sensitive tests can be over sensitive sometimes.
The things that can affect the test which are out of your control is the calibration of the machine which can change the readings a little.

In addition if you do not use the same lab/same measurement method (assay) then the readings can vary significantly. My husbands readings were 0.03 on one machine but 0.01 on another and blood was taken on exactly the same day.

Then the tiny amount of PSA you have varies during the day.

It is easy to stress out over these variables and I have done so in the past but the stress is not worth it. If the numbers are stable between 0.02 and 0.05 that is a good thing.

An

The thing is, you can't really blame certain personality types wanting to do the ultra sensitive psa. Some people are good with knowing there psa is under .1 Other people like to know the minutia. I understand both ways of thinking although I will agree not doing the ultra sensitive test will be a more stress free existence. No one knows for sure what the link is between testosterone and prostate cancer but speaking from my experience… the way I discovered I had prostate cancer was because of testosterone. I had low libido and decided to try andro gel. My doctor checked my psa before prescribing andro gel and then tested me two weeks after using andro gel. Because I had cancer the psa rose dramatically. Testosterone may not cause prostate cancer (and I don't think it does) but it is certainly like throwing gas on a fire if you do have it. I'm 50 years old and for the last year or so I have been running a lot and lifting weights. My testosterone has increased most likely from this activity and my psa has gone from .05 to .03 I'm not saying it's because of the activity but during that time my testosterone went from 320 to 400. From my previous experience if I still had active cancer my psa would have increased also. Since it didn't my doctor agree's with me that it's a very good sign that the remaining psa count is from benign post surgical prostate tissue. Who knows. But i'm optimistic. Also for those of you who do the ultra sensitive psa test, make sure you are well hydrated before they draw blood. There have been indications that this will effect your score as well.