This forum is for the discussion of anything to do with Prostate Cancer. There are only four rules:
No fundraisers, no commercials (although it is OK to recommend choices of treatment or medical people based on your personal research; invitations to participate in third-party surveys are also acceptable, provided there is no compensation to YANA);
No harvesting e-mail addresses for Spam;
No insults or flaming - be polite and respectful at all times and understand that there may be a variety of points of view, all of which may have some validity;
Opinions are OK, but please provide as much factual evidence as possible for any assertions that you are making
Failure to abide by these simple rules will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your posting privileges.
Since this is an International Forum, please specify your location in your post.
Before answering your question perhaps it is as well to emphasise the use of the words "positive" and "negative." In your usual "pre-cancer" place, broadly speaking, positive = good and negative = bad or not good. These positions are somewhat reversed in PCa talk. A positive result means that there are definite signs of the disease. On the other hand, a negative result does not mean you are disease free. There are merely no positive signs. So in this Strange Place, positive = bad and negative = not positive.
The ‘margins’ referred to in post surgery pathology reports are where the surgeon has cut through to remove the material that is the subject of the pathology report. Ideally all margins should be negative i.e. there should be no signs of the disease because the surgeon should have allowed sufficient space around any tumour to ensure that the entire tumour was removed. There can be multiple margins, although such a situation would indicate an unusual form of the disease and/or an unusually inept surgeon.
Perhaps a simplistic example, using your peach analogy may help you understand some of these terms. Suppose you bite into a luscious peach, chew and swallow the bite and then look down at the remains of the peach to aim your next bite. You see a worm hole. That’s the equivalent of a positive margin! You can then dissect the remains of the peach to see if you can find the worm. If you don’t find the worm, then one of the outcomes of your bite is that the worm has escaped the peach and progressed into you.
