I’m 10 months post surgery. Gleason 4+3. Questionable margins. PSA was in the mid 30s going into surgery. Have been undetectable on my three PSA tests since surgery. The first test I had was a Quest labs test that was < 0.02. I didn’t like the threshold being that high, so I switched to the LabCorp test, which has a threshold of less than 0.006. I’ve been undetectable on the two LabCorp test that I’ve had so far. I know that some big cancer centers, including the mayo clinic, don’t like testing anything with thresholds below 0.1. I don’t believe in this philosophy at all. I want to know if somethings growing in me so I can make plans and get appointments ahead of time. I understand that they can’t detect anything well on the PSMA PET Scan until the PSA is above a certain threshold. But, with possible positive margins, I have a pretty good ideas as to where the cancer might be if it grows back. And with all the delays of getting appointments, want to have my ducks in a row if it does come back. Having said that, I also know that having a very low threshold test and being below that threshold puts me in a good place for now.

The waiting is awful between the tests. However, I also know that I’m in a better place than I could be. I’ve done all the recurrence nomograms and know what my odds are of recurrence. They are definitely higher than 50% in the next ten years.

To answer your real question, have people been in this DMZ and then never had an occurrence? The answer is absolutely. I would also say that the guys that do not have a recurrence are very much under-sampled on these forums. You might see somebody post something like “it’s my three-year anniversary of being undetectable“ or something like that, but that’s about it if they’re in a good place. However, if you go detectable, of course you’re going to go to these boards and report it. I know I will.

So, consider yourself lucky so far. It may stay that way. It may not. But, such as the world we live in now for the rest of our lives. I hope I’m sitting here worrying about my test and 10 years and still seeing it undetectable.

Good luck to you.