OK, but am I cured?

Clean Gene,
Sloan Kettering has some great Prostate Cancer Prediction Tools. I have highlighted the Post Radical Prostatectomy tool. (Click the "I Accept" button to the left.)

You enter your numbers and it tells you the odds of biochemical recurrence. The longer you are at zero, the lower your odds.
Here is the info from their site:
"Our post-radical prostatectomy nomogram can be used to predict the probability that a patient's cancer will recur after radical prostatectomy; that is, the probability at two, five, seven, and ten years that the patient's serum PSA level will become detectable and begin to rise steadily. This prediction tool should only be used for patients when radical prostatectomy has been the sole, primary treatment.

You will need the following information in order to use the nomogram:

Patient’s PSA (prostate-specific antigen) value prior to surgery or other treatment
Primary Gleason grade at surgery
Secondary Gleason grade at surgery
Year of prostatectomy
Number of months the patient has been disease-free
Whether surgical margins were positive
Whether cancer was found in the seminal vesicles
Whether cancer was found in the lymph nodes (if any were removed)
Whether there was extracapsular extension
Whether the patient has received neoadjuvant hormones
Whether the patient has had neoadjuvant radiation"

If you are a data guy, you will love it. I ran your numbers assuming a 3 month PSA test and they look pretty good. (Of course they were pretty good to start with.)

Enjoy,
Jeff

By the way, the day you step out in front of a bus is the day your chance of recurrence is finally 0.00% ;-)

NOT IDENTIFIED means it's not there. A good thing.

As you can see, your odds are heavily stacked in your favor.

clean gene...I am not a moderator and may be overstepping my bounds but I did want to say... there is nothing wrong with asking questions. You may not get answers IMMEDIATELY like you want. No one here is required to be at anyone's beck and call. Those incredibly giving moderators give of their time to help others.

The grunts, like me, are here to learn and to chime in to help others when we can. Each poster here comes with a totally different mindset. You are just recently post op and incredibly uncomfortable about your future odds of having this get you so to speak. You have tons of questions and want that reassurance that all of us would like but there are no absolutes and that is a tough thing to get your head around. I want it over. This site was a big part of me realizing and learning it will never be over and I hated it for that. It took away this false perception I created for myself because I wanted reality to be a little easier to handle. Now, I've just jumped straight into the pool and realized that the old refrain "once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient" is true...like it or not. However, that does not mean that cancer will return or play any role in my life going forward. It is on me to choose to not let this run my life. I used it as a teaching point to live better. A lesson if you will.

I hope you can find peace and calm regarding what you've been through. You have come out of it in sterling shape. Most would trade with you. I type just minutes away from picking up the phone to get my 2nd post op PSA results. I've had more anxiety over this number than any other thing for some reason. I've got to go face it right now.

Post Edited (Inchoation) : 3/27/2014 1:15:34 PM (GMT-6)

Gene, I'm sorry you had such a terrible year. That sounds just awful. I can't imagine the stress of all of that.

Please, understand that I'm nobody on this site. You should ask as many questions as you want/need to. Heaven knows I do. This is a support based forum and it does that very well. It is not a sugar coat feel good forum which I think is also very important. Nobody here is going to blow smoke to make someone feel better, at least not that I've seen.

HW is fortunate to have very bright and informed moderators who give and give of their time. These guys really know their stuff. I applaud a person who wants to spend their time helping others.

Gene, I was like you...likely worse off than you in wanting questions answered. I just spent hours googling as well as being here. I would get disappointed if I posted and someone didn't answer quickly but that rarely happened. We all want things...now! NOW! This stuff is an emergency to us and it should be. It is important. Just letting you know that there's nothing you've done here that was out of line at all save for potentially insinuating that some might be blowing smoke. You wanted the truth and F8 provided it... NOBODY could tell you what the truth is because none of us know what your truth is or will be. No doctor could do it either.

WE will get through this...TOGETHER, brother!

Everyone is encouraged and expected to speak up with what they've learned, and if you're not careful, you might get drafted as a Mod.

I, for one, show up as logged in all the time, which is a side effect of my browser's handling of shut downs. As well, I have a day job, so may go a few hours (or more) at a time without being able to take the time to check the site. I don't do iThings, so it is "at the computer or nothing".

And for my answer to the "Cured?" question - I am on a rollercoaster of recurrence, so I'll define "Cured" as dying of something else first without having significant impact from PCa. Since that boat has sailed, I expect that only you guys who outlive me will be able to say if I was cured.

One more thing then I am probably done asking questions-really. Does ANYBODY come out of surgery with a complete 0, as in .000000000 -ANYBODY???? It seems to me that nobody is ever completely Cured-Right?

Incho, I hope everything is turning ok for you?

Gene,

The good news is that with each year that goes by without a cancer recurrence, your odds of recurrence go down. Mine are currently 1%.

The bad news is that few men ever have a zero (undetectable level) PSA.
Mine floats around at a low level (I call it background noise), but never hits undetectable, but my worry level is now undetectible at less than 0.001.

Take care and hang in there

Thank you TIM and FORUM MODERATOR, It doesn't take too much "banging of my head" to realize that <0.01 is UNDETECTABLE - Does it? I just have to "cool it" if I can. I go away from the computer and then I get hyped up and nervous and go back on it, looking for new news. I hope Incho is alright, he seems like a good dude, hope all is well with him also. I hope we all are alright. I'll go about my business and check back later looking for some good news, don't get tired of my sh-t, it's just me, can't help it. I just thought I would get the surgery and that would be it, I didn't know that all of us would have to be checked every 3 months and monitor this thing the rest of our lives. Catch ya later. Gene

Can anyone out there tell me which psa result is considered better < 0.01 or <0.03, I bet somebody today that <0.01 is lower than <0.03. I figure that .01 is one tenth and .03 is three tenths - right? Not sweating anything, just want to win a bet-Thanks

But to confuse things, a 0.009 would qualify for both. It is Less Than 0.01, and Less Than 0.03.

It is possible that the number in both cases is LESS than the lowest sensitivity of the combination of the hardware's abilities and the specific test requested (different tests will give different detail even on the same machine).

So unless you have a crystal ball, they are both excellent numbers.

Not sure you win. The bet is rigged by the test and equipment.

When the "Less Than" of "<" is used, it means that is the lowest level the test and equipment combination can read. So something in the combination of test and equipment is different between the two results.