Prostate Cancer Survivors

 

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Re: PSA Anxiety

MH,

As you'd hopefully be aware I read hundreds of reports from all over the world every year (and have done so for the past 14 years or so). As an observation only, I can tell you that you are not alone in experiencing this 'rise'in your ultra-sensitive PSA reading.

Many men have reported similar incidents and this has led me to believe that there has been some change made in the calibration of ultra-sensitive results by some, if not all, of the PSA test manufacturers. One of the YANA men - Mike C reports that his local labs are now not reporting to the low levels they have in the past and there is an insteresting paper which was produced in November last year - you can see the Abstract in Ultra Sensitive PSA - which concludes:

Agreement between prostate specific antigen doubling time calculated using ultrasensitive vs traditional prostate specific antigen values is poor. Ultrasensitive prostate specific antigen doubling time is often significantly more rapid than traditional prostate specific antigen doubling time, potentially overestimating the risk of clinical recurrence. Until the significance of ultrasensitive prostate specific antigen doubling time is better characterized, the decision to proceed with salvage therapy should not be based on prostate specific antigen doubling time calculated using ultrasensitive prostate specific antigen values.

As I say, my comments are based on observation only. I have suggested to a number of men that they might check with their labs to see if there has been a change in the rotocols or materials used in the testing process. Only one has replied to me. He was told by his lab that there had indeed been a change and that the current results could not be compared directly to previous ones. Naturally, no one told the patients, although the lab claimed that doctors had been advised of the change.

Read up on some of the stories where men show positive PSA levels in their updates.

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