From what you describe as his treatment though lacking in his clinical history, has he had surgery, when, what did the pathology report say, if surgery, when was his BCR, has he had PSMA imaging, if so, results, what is his PSADT and PSAV, GS, GG...his PSA should be undetectable early on in the course of this treatment he is on now, say in the first three months, certainly by six.
The old goal was to get T below 50, based on testing capability, newer testing capability has < 20 as objective.
As to his PSA, the objective is "undetectable..." The question is, what does that mean? The answer, it depends..
Found this useful from another forum, what really is “not detectable…?” below the limit of detection using analytical method XYZ" (or simply "below the limit of detection" unless queried further) instead of "undetectable". They typically advised that one could find (or develop) another analytical method having a more sensitive lower limit of detection if there were good enough reason to spend the resources to do so, but it is unlikely that any analytical method would be capable of ascertaining that the sample analyzed does not contain a single molecule of the target substance.
Kevin
Yes. the threshold is important. The standard PSA test can detect down to 0.1 these days, give or take. That's fine for screening, but not for detecting early signs of recurrence (there have been few — *very* few — cases of recurrence near that range). The ultrasensitive PSA (uPSA) test that I get goes down to 0.01, and I have not yet found any mention of recurrence when PSA is undetectable on the uPSA test.
So that's the application of uPSA: treatment has brought your PSA to effectively 0, and you want the earliest available warning of possible recurrence.
Agreed that the uPSA test would have no extra value if your PSA is already detectable on the regular test.