Ultrasensitive PSA vs. Standard PSA Readings

Well, let's begin with "necessary".
Salvage Treatment was tolerable and pretty much dominated my life for 6 mos.
SPPORT trial supports ADT, either short 4 - 6 mos or long 18 - 24 mos.
And treatment of the whole pelvic region (WPRT) together with pelvic lymph nodes.
I took Orgovyx as my ADT and thought it was the best choice for me.
I had 37 IMRT radiation sessions over 8 weeks (66.6 gy to pelvic area and 45 to lymph nodes; low daily doses over an extended period of time).
ADT side effects (SEs) were tolerable; primarily fatigue.
Radiation side effects were bowel issues and rectal pain/discomfort beginning about halfway through radiation. Radiation SEs disappeared 2 - 3 wks following completion of radiation. Those 6 weeks were not pleasant.
Personal note: I elected all treatment (RP and Salvage) at Johns Hopkins, a COE for prostate cancer, 70 miles distant. So I bought myself a fairly long daily commute for the radiation, which made prep and bowel issues somewhat pronounced for me. My choice.
Radiation preparation prequires mostly full bladder and mostly empty rectum, and that is stressful to manage, but everyone seems to accomplish it.
My treatment results have been undetectable PSA < .02 for the past 12 mos and no residual SEs. A subsequent, periodic Colonoscopy reported no evidence of radiation damage to the colon.
I am not sure what else to add, except that I would make the same treatment choices today.
And I am grateful for the care that I have received and especially the results to date.
Best wishes.

Yes, I think we've hit a consensus here:

1. If your PSA is detectable on the regular PSA test (e.g. > 0.1), then the uPSA test is essentially the same as the regular PSA test.

2. If your PSA is *un*detectable on the regular PSA test (which will usually happen only for people getting hormone treatment), then uPSA will give you an earlier warning when the cancer is becoming castrate-resistant and allow earlier (and hopefully, less drastic) intervention, since the test is at least 10x as sensitive.

So if your PSA is, say, 3.5, the uPSA test probably brings no extra benefit; but, as always, talk to your oncologist rather than trusting some anonymous guy online like me. 🙂

I had my Blood draw at UCI on Jan 7th AM. For Ultra Sensitive PSA, they sent it to ARUP Laboratories in Salt Lake City. The result 0.05 was already in Mychart this morning. My result on December 3rd from the same lab was also 0.05. On October 7 it was 0.06.
They say lowest value detected is 0.01, only 2 decimal places. Some of you posted with results less than 0.01, up to 3 decimal places.
That makes me think my result could be less than 0.05, since they don't say 0.050. It could be 0.045, but it would be reported as 0.05.
If you I am measurements freak, you are right!

Always fun to play with numbers, but I think perhaps two significant digits are sufficient for any diagnostic work. 🙂

Hi @dksimon57, I wanted to make sure you saw the helpful post from @michaelcharles in response to your question. See here: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/comment/1207437/

@dksimon57, are you in the process of getting salvage treatment?