Monday, June 4, 2012
PSA Recurrence Stats
Between 15 and 40 percent of men undergoing radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer experience a PSA recurrence. This survey explores some of the risk factors for PSA recurrence as well as the outcomes of those with a PSA recurrence after prostatectomy. If you have had a PSA recurrence after prostatectomy please answer the questions below and then click "done" to compare your experience with those of other men who have also had a recurrence. If you did not have a PSA recurrence or do not know the answers to the questions, you can skip down to the end of the survey to click "done" to learn from the experiences of others. Of note, once you click "done" you cannot return to complete the survey. Also, feel free to leave comments about your PSA recurrence experience in the comments section if there is information not covered in the survey that you would like to share.
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Dear Doc,
ReplyDeleteI underwent RP in Sept. 07 and was recording 0.0 PSAs for 48 months.
Until last week.
My PSA is now at 0.01
I have read all of your explanations about ultra sensitive versus standard assays, but I am still confused.
* Is my 0.01 PSA now considered BCR failure? Or putting it another way, is my PSA rising?
* Recent studies are beginning to show that ultra sensitive PSAs can catch BCR failure 18 months earlier than standard tests. And a few studies seem to indicate that earlier salvage treatment is the best approach for survival.
If this is the case, why aren't men using the information from ultra sensitive tests to jump on the salvage radiation earlier?
And why are doctors still advising patients to wait until .1 and even .2 before taking any steps?
One answer I see frequently is that a lot of 'noise' is created by the ultra sensitive tests, but what exactly does that mean? No one ever explains that.
Another answer is that benign prostate tissue left over from surgery could be producing the PSA. But in my case, wouldn't that have been discovered years ago?
Thanks for answering.
Mark Ragan
-- Negative margins
-- No evidence of cancer in lymph nodes, which were removed, or anywhere else.
-- 40 percent cancer involvement in tumor