New Member with questions

My husband had Da Vinci robotic surgery in November 2007 at age 50.

His father passed away due to prostate cancer in 2000, so hubby was vigilant about having his PSA checked. He also had a "bump" on the prostate they were checking. He had a biopsy in 2000 but it was negative.

In 2007, his PSA rose from 1.3 to 2.26 and they recommended another biopsy. This time it showed two positive areas.

His gleason score was 3+3 6
Pathology staging was pT2c

Margins were clear, no other involvement seen although they did not check the lymph nodes. He hasn't had a bone scan or any further testing except routine PSA's.

My question - his first post op PSA in March 2008 was 0.01.
by October 2008 it was 0.02.
January 2010 it was 0.04.

Should we be concerned at this slow rise? Should we ask for additional tests? He isn't due to have another PSA until July 2010.

He has no symptoms or any problems. He had very litttle incontinence issues after the catheter was removed 10 days post op. Maybe wore a pad for a week. ED is not an issue.

I'm glad to have found this forum. Thanks for any suggestions.

I agree with Michael .... I am one month post op from Robotic surgery and just had my first post op PSA test ... it read < 0.04 which the doctor considered undetectable. Our plan is to monitor the PSA and whatch for the number not to exceed 0.01 at that point (should we ever get there) we would have to consider additional treatment.

Mrs,

Welcome and thanks for your post. All the psa numbers you quoted are well under the .10 threshold. And since we are dealing with testing sensitive to two places behind the decimal, some of the variation could be withing the normal tolerance range of the test itself, and there will be minute differences between readings even day to day.

If, and I hope it never happens, that it rises to/or above .10, I would relax and settle back for some more zero time. Sounds like your husband is dealing well.

Keep us posted, please.

David in SC

MrsGFM, your husband's PSA continues to be just fine. I know it's scary to see any increase in PSA but these numbers are like grains of sand on a beach...one or two more or less is nothing to be concerned about.

Magaboo has a good suggestion. While your husband's surgery was 3 years ago, it might not be a bad idea to get the ole PSA checked every 3 months just to make sure that there isn't something going on (which I don't think there is).

Stay well, and stay with us.

I agree with what the others have said -- even with the ultra sensitive test 0.04 is usually considered zero. Your doctor sees a lot of test results and so his choice of when to re-test is likely to be pretty well informed.

On the other hand, worry is real and if you find it weighing heavily on you, talk to your doctor about a re-test sooner.

Any where any time on getting a simple blood test. the normal testing sequence that I was told is every 3 months for the first year, every six onths for yesrs 2-4, and annually after that. Your sounds like a zero read to me.

English Alf,

Even when I had to switch gears to radiation with my salvage radiation treatments, the radiation clinic reccomended that I use the same lab as before, not their's, for any future PSA readings, for the purpose of consistency. I had my PSA tests done by my uro's lab since 2007, so feel that the results are consistent.

If one just randomly gets tested by different labs, how would they ever really know if there was a trend or not going on, especially with ultrasensitive testing?

David in SC