Never see mention of this test

I was dx. in late 2009. I had a slightly rising PSA, eventually going to 4.09. My Free-PSA score was very good. I went to U. of Mich hoping to see if there is another test before doing a biopsy. They did what I recall was a PCA-3 test. You pee in a cup after a VIGOROUS DRE. A good score is below 35%. Mine was about 70+%, which led to my biopsy. Do they still utilize this test? I never hear of it on HW.

Mel

Mel, I had a PCa3 test before my second biopsy, in late 2014. It indicated high chance of cancer, and here I am. It was correct

I remember discussing the PCA3 with my uro prior to my diagnosis. Once I had a biopsy result, we decided that it wouldn't (at that time) add anything to the process, as I decided right away on treatment once we noted that there were some G4 cells present in my biopsy samples. This was all during summer of 2016.

I had one in 2013. In hindsight, it could have been disastrous. My PSA was only 5.2 (up from 4.1 six months earlier). We were debating whether to do a biopsy or not, so the PCA3 test was chosen as another indicator. I think mine came out at "35" whatever units. It was a marginal call, some suggested no biopsy if it was that low (with a cutoff of 36 or so, IIRC?), but my urologist was a little more conservative (cutoff of 25, so "go ahead" at 35) and did the biopsy anyway. Good thing too!

I've thought later, how much delay would there have been if the doc had decided that PCA3 test wasn't bad enough to suggest a biopsy?

I don't think I'd recommend that test based on my personal sample of one. It came perilously close to suggesting that I, subsequently diagnosed with a G9 5+4, 6 of 12 positive cores, locally advanced cT3a by MRI, maybe didn't need to even have a biopsy! Yikes.