Prostate cancer metastasis

Yes. The most-important one is PSA. After that, they use LDH and ALP together for confirmation. LDH is a very visible but non-specific indicator: if it's elevated, it might be from a tumour, or it might just be from some other bone or muscle distress (like the screws in my spine and fibrosis where they cut me to operate). If ALP and PSA are normal, then elevated LDH probably doesn't point to cancer; but if PSA, LDH, and ALP are all elevated, then your oncology team might want to do some imaging or other tests.

In addition to this, there's the proprietary genetic Episwitch test that you can combine with PSA in what the company calls a "PSE test". Currently, that's officially tested and approved only for screening people who haven't been diagnosed with prostate cancer (to reduce false positives), not for monitoring patients who are known to have prostate cancer, but the company is pushing to have it used for monitoring as well.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a medical or research professional.)

Docandy- from what I am told most Dr's look at PSA levels , at least in Canada . They also look at the PC features that you had , and have now . If PSA velocity rises quickly further investigation must take place . Say you were a PSA of 0.05 , and six months later your 0.45 . That a huge rise over 6 moths . At this point I would request a PSMA - PET scan , as your over 0.02 , so you should get a good picture of Cancer , if it is indeed this , that raised your PSA counts . Hope this helps . Im not a doctor but have been told this by medical people and my Dr.

As a former clinical lab manager, I would say to use caution in trying to connect other traditional lab tests and their values to prostate cancer and metastasis. LDH is mentioned, but there are five LDH “isoenzymes” (normal functionally-specific variants in every human). Each is specific to certain tissue (heart, liver, etc.). Alkaline Phosphatase is used almost exclusively as an indicator of liver function and health. If your Alkaline Phosphatase is elevated, then most likely other liver assays are as well (ALP/SGPT, GGT, Bilirubin, etc.) indicating pathology in the liver. The other commenter was correct: your physician will rely on PSA as the gold standard specific to the prostate. If you had a prostatectomy, your PSA should be “0.0”. Physicians look for < 0.1 ng/ml or less. It grabs their attention if it is 0.2 or higher, meaning that you fell into the unlucky 10-20% of men whose urologist didn’t get “all” of the prostate/tissue out during the prostatectomy (I am in that group unfortunately…”surgical margins”). So now…you’re a candidate for radiation that carries its own (low but real) risk of bladder or rectal cancer. We all just have to play the hand we were dealt, and hope for the best. And as mostly laymen, you should leave it to your physician to monitor and treat you accordingly.