Today’s (10/30/25) psa test

I appreciate the salvage RT PSA test anxiety.

Just in case it helps, your PSA is lower than mine at this point in time after the completion of RT and my PSA became < 0.01 six months after the completion of RT, and has stayed there since.

Deal with what? A falling PSA? Go enjoy your day knowing your PSA fell. We can become identified by this disease. I know I did and working hard to take my life back. Next PSA is January so a I still have a few months to focus on getting the best out of everyday as if I am cancer free.

@johndavis60
Are you on hormone therapy? Being on it makes difference in PSA. From your post you had radiation not RP. So your PSA is excellent. I wish mine was that low but my lab won't give numbers below .10 At my lab below .10 is considered undetectable

Depending on your lab they determine what is undetectable number. How long has it been since your radiation ended? I hope you were briefed that PSA will bump up and down and is to be expected (per my UFHPTI R/O and Mayo/RO, PCP Mayo). Completely normal and to be expected.

It is the steady rise over time that is a concern not an occasional bump up and down. I was told to expect the bumps and have had two of them in 2.5 years. I am at PSA now of .12 That per my R/Os is excellent. I did not have hormone treatment before, during, after. My R/O at UFHPTI said goal was to have it stay below 1.

Many things can affect PSA levels and not indicate cancer back or growing. I was told by my R/O you could have different PSA level of a lab from one test to another using same blood.

At Mayo Jacksonville a PSA below .10 is considered undetectable. You will not get a number below .10 from Mayo Jacksonville lab. It will just have the symbol below .10 Other labs will have different numbers for undetectable. I am not sure why some go so far down and others do not. I would expect types of devices used but not a medical professional and just an opinion.

@jc76 I had a prostatectomy in May 2025. I am now doing Firmagon as of Aug 6, abiraterone as of Sept 11, and radiation. I have 6 out of 38 radiation treatments to go. I get nervous about my psa because I am Gleason 9, idcp, cribriform with tp53, pten loss mutations, somatic not genomic. I have to be aggressive as possible.
Thanks -John 😉

I’m nearing the home stretch with salvage radiation (IMRT). Going in, my PSA was 0.11 on a regular test and 0.094 on an ultra-sensitive test. Yesterday, I asked my RO what she thought would be good PSA numbers when we test again in three months and beyond. Her answer was a bit surprising. She said that trends were more important to her than any particular number. Even if my PSA stayed at 0.1 and din'td trend up, she would be satisfied. Of course, a permanent drop is even better. She mentioned that there will be fluctuations up and down, within a small range, and that is okay too, as long as there is no upward trend. I also asked about variations with the ultra-sensitive test, like from 0.02 to 0.04. Does doubling at these lower values have any clinical significance? Her answer basically was 'no, unless there is a continual rise beyond 0.1’.

I know well the anxiety around PSA values (I’ve been dealing with PCa since 2014). Your current numbers. look good to me. Hang in there.

your Score is great! 🙂 Celebrate with something Delicious! 🙂

@melvinw
Your results are unusual. If you do not get an ultra sensitive test, then your results are to one decimal point, yet you show yours as .11. Then you show an ultra sensitive result of .094. Actually, both of those results are ultra sensitive if it really is .11 for the first test. I’ve never had an ultra sensitive test, and my maximum number of decimal points is one for the last eight years. I’ve never seen a lab that gives you two decimal points unless you’re test is ultra sensitive.

The two results you got are just pretty darn the same if you get the tests any amount of time apart.. The difference is really negligible.

So the real question is, how did you get two decimal points if it wasn’t ultra sensitive? What did they call it before that ultra sensitive test?

@jeffmarc Jeff, curious what the solution for the night time hot flashes are--currently taking nubeqa, eligard injection, taxotere and carboplatin for chemos--getting the hot flashes every night

@jeffmarc Interesting question. The 0.11 reading was from Quest. They do not indicate this as an ultra-sensitive test. It’s just their standard test, using the Siemens chemiluminescent method. The 0.094 reading was from LabCorp, and that was ordered as an ultra-sensitive test. So, perhaps, as you say, the Quest assay is ultra-sensitive but they don’t call it such.

The blood draws for these tests were quite literally back to back, same day (in September) within 15 minutes of each other. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that different assays yielded results that close, or for all practical purposes, the same.

Also makes me wonder what would have happened (or not happened, really) back in June if I had done the LabCorp ultra-sensitive test and it came back < 0.1. Instead, I used Quest then, and my PSA was also 0.11. That number, and a palpable module detected during a DRE, put further testing in motion, which took my right into salvage RT.

That is fantastic result John : )) !!!
I know - I am perfectionist also lol, so nothing but 0.001 would "do" and possibly be "worthy" of yelling "hallelujah" , BUT we have to accept that nothing with PC is ever "perfect", not even close and we have to learn to celebrate great (if not perfect) results ; ) or we will go nuts, ha ha !
SO - remember where you started *hugssss, and celebrate undetectable PSA full sail by dancing and singing going down the street ; ) !