Posted 7/27/2020 6:29 PM (GMT 0)
Excellent! Labcorp's ultrasensitive test can detect down to either 0.014 or 0.006 depending on which equipment they happen to run your test on. The < sign means your value on that day could not be detected and was therefore lower than that machine's lower limit. If you happen to get the more sensitive analyzer next time and if your PSA is still below 0.014, you'll get a bit more information: either a result between 0.013 and 0.006, or another undetectable, i.e., <0.006.
To avoid confusion, it's best to write decimal numbers less than one with a leading zero before the decimal point. For example, if you write .003 the reader may wonder whether it's meant to be 0.03 (misplaced decimal) or 0.003 (missing zero). A laboratory or scientific publication will never omit that zero. In other words no laboratory or scientific publication will ever report .1 for 0.1
You do see a lot of "missing" zeros in PSAs in signatures, probably to save space there, which is limited. Also, if you see a series of numbers all without this zero, you can assume they are written informally.
Djin