Today's PSA was quite reassuring. It came in at 0.8, the same as two months ago! This indicates a stabilizing (stabilized?) situation. If it stays around that value, then no worries!
One of my support group acquaintances had a very similar situation to mine, and similar treatment. His PSA leveled off at 0.5, varying +/- a couple of tenths for the last 5 years, with 6 month checkups now. Maybe mine will do something similar, but at a little higher value.
With my substantially irradiated prostate still in place, and able to produce a limited amount of PSA, a non-zero long term value is expected. I've seen studies that conflict about
what that stable value should be, but that's one reason the wizards of smart came up with that Phoenix criterion, that it's not recurrence until it goes over 2.0 after primary RT. Perhaps oversimplifying, but they found that most guys leveling off below that generally weren't recurring.
The Gompertz curve calculation that I posted earlier this year seems to be a pretty decent forecast so far. This is based on readings from September 2016 through March 2017, forecasting a limit value of about
0.85. (It might even turn out a bit lower than that).
PSA vs. Time, Forecast by Gompertz curve (0.2, 0.5, 0.7)All in all, a good day! Right now, this trend analysis has pretty well dispersed my persistent analytical tempest. I'll have to find something else to fuss about
for the next 3 months.
