@heavyphil
“Negative margins” is obviously good but not definitive. The pathologist cannot look at ever tiny bit of capsule for extensions but looks at a lot of representative sections. Mine said “clear margins” but then said”tumor within 0.1mm (!) of the posterior capsule”. Had that been his prostate, I bet he would have. Looked a lot more and not called it clear. Also things like tumor along nerves and vessels (perivascular and perineural) and tumor in seminal vesicles and, of course, tumor in lymph nodes are all worrisome findings (and the surgeon can’t take out ALL the lymph nodes but only the ones available close by for sampling. All in all, there are a lot of factors other than the path report, mainly follow up for persistence or recurrence of tumor.