Question about Velocity

Perhaps out of date now, but I was told the threshold is: "watch for >20% or >0.75 increase per year."

Doubling time..How long does it take for your PSA to double? This is the figure that seems to concern doctors the most...

Are you talking about readings prior to diagnosis and initial treatments, or readings involving a recurrence after treatment? If the former,a steady percentage rise over several years would be much more concerning and a stronger reason for a biopsy. A one-time big jump of several points (at your level) would more consistent with an infection.

If you post your age and the dates and reading of each of your test, so we can see the whole time series, it is possible to give you a more specific answer.

Regarding the pre-treatment setting, there is one scary paper that suggests a rise of >2 per year (in absolute terms not percentage terms) is an ominous sign, but later research says that this finding does not mean much once other factors such as gleason, staging, etc. are taken into account.

Fairwind said...
Doubling time..How long does it take for your PSA to double? This is the figure that seems to concern doctors the most...

So what constitutes an alarming doubling time, and over how long a period is it calculated

My doubling time is 2 years, but half of that increase came in the last six months which is making my mind run a little wild, about aggressiveness of whatever they might find.

Pratoman - Personally, I would get re-biopsied if those were my numbers. One option is to seek out one of the guided biopsies where they use endo-rectal MRI or ultrasound to seek out questionable areas and then focus on the biopsy on those areas that seem suspicious. The numbers you have don't look like infection. The fact that the numbers stayed essentially flat between November 2012 and 2013 says that the rise through that point could well be a result of BPH, particularly given your negative biopsy during that period. The fact that it went from 3.1 to 4.3 over the past six months is of greater concern.

Still, like Tall Allen and others above, I would encourage NOT worrying about the rate of rise because that is not so important at this point. The important thing now is to understand whether you have PC or not, and if you do, what is the stage and grade.

In my case, my numbers rose very steadily pre-diagnosis, right up to the very end. The following were my readings, at roughly one year intervals:
1.1
1.3
1.6
2.0
2.7
3.6 --> after was, I got the biopsy.
The interesting thing was that in between getting the last reading above, and getting the prostatectomy, a period of about 4 months, and I got one more PSA just before the surgery, out of curiosity more than anything else. It was 5.3 at that time, indicating that the rate of growth took a significant uptick.

As you can see, my PSA rose at about 30% year, and I turned out to have G3+4 with 5 of 14 cores positive. it was good that I got the surgery when I did because in several places I was just 1 mm shy of extracapsular extension.

Thanks guys. I guess I'm looking for answers that don't exist. Groping for straws. Still nothimg I read here or anywhere, seems encouraging

I'm gonna just have to wait a few weeks till I know more. Torture (as I'm sure most here don't need to be told).
My birthday is Sunday and so is my daughters. We (the whole family ) are all going for brunch to celebrate. I'm not saying anything to my kids until I have something concrete. That brunch is going to be hard, I need to practice smiling