No, PSE is a newish proprietary approach that combines a regular PSA test with an epigenetic test to show if certain cancer-related markers show up in the bloodstream. The idea is that the epigenetic test refines the PSA test and reduces false positives for screening in the general population.

For those of us who've already been biopsied and know we have cancer, I'm not sure the epigenetic part adds any value (as @jeffmarc has pointed out, the genetic markers *should* be there anyway), but it's early days, and I'm still reading and learning.

In the meantime, once one has had radiation therapy or a prostatectomy, the PSA test alone — especially the ultrasensitive one that many of us get — increases its value for detecting possible recurrence. Normally, most PSA comes from the prostate, so an elevated PSA when the prostate has been removed or radiated indicates that something else (i.e. cancer) is likely producing it.

The literature reports a few cases of prostate cancer progressing while PSA is still low-ish (e.g. < 2.0), but personally I haven't yet read of progression when PSA is < 0.01 on the ultrasensitive test.