Good news indeed!

After SRT in Spring of 2006, my PSA has gone down from 0.110 pre-SRT
to 0.044 (3 months post), 0.025 (6 months), 0.019 (9months), 0.013 (12
months), 0.008 (15 months).

They told me that anything under 0.04 (as the lowest point) would
indicate initial success; but you started considerably higher than me
so I assume that your 0.050 after just 3 months is excellent! One
would expect yours to continue to decline for a few months yet.

My understanding is that PSA never gets to 0.000; there is always some
residual prostate tissue, which, even if benign, will trigger some PSA
measurement.

BTW, they told me I shouldn't celebrate too much until 2 years after
SRT. But looks to me that so far, you're doing fine!

Good luck, and continued low PSAs!!

Fred

Congratulations to both you and Allen!  The PSA trend is going the
right way and, in my opinion, a "normal" manner.  Radiation is sort of
funny in that the effects of the treatments are cumulative and they
continue to "build up" at least for a while after treatments are
finished.  I think it's pretty "normal" for the first drop to be
noticed at about 3 months after treatments end.  Hopefully that trend
will continue.

Will it ever get to zero?  First, the tests that are commonly used for
diagnosis and monitoring don't measure to zero.  They have a bottom
limit to what can be measured.  Therefore, when PSA drops below that
level, results will be reported as <0.0X, with X representing the
lowest amount that can be measured by that test.  And, since no one
can really know if the actual PSA is just under the amount that can be
measured or is actually far below that amount, I think you'll find
that no one will tell you that PSA is zero.  There are some
ultra-sensitive tests that are sometimes used for specific purposes,
but I think they can not measure to absolute zero, either.  If I'm
wrong about this, I'm sure someone will correct me.  

In the meantime, continue to be happy that the PSA is low and
dropping.

This should help you have "Happy Holidays"!  Best wishes.
Burney

RP in 1995 (age 52)
RT in 2000
ADT (Casodex) 10/06 - 8/07

burney dot huff at mindspring dot com

On Nov 28, 5:27 pm, "Debbie13331" <nos...@family.net> wrote...snip...

Hi Debbie...Congrats to you and Allen on the nice PSA trend!  As to
your question, some other organs in the body do produce very small
amounts of PSA.  For example, PSA has been found to be present in
epithelial cells of the trachea, thyroid gland, mammary gland,
salivary gland, pancreatic exocrine glands, jejunum, ileum,
epididymis, seminal vesicle and urethra, as well as in Leydig cells
and epidermis pituitary tissue and adrenal tissue.  It is also found
in many tumors (e.g. lung, colon, ovary, liver, kidney, adrenal and
paroria).  As expected from the above, PSA has also been found in
women.  PSA in women can occasionally exceed 0.1 ng/ml depending upon
BCa status, age, time in the menstrual cycle, etc.  So while PSA may
be "undectable" with currrent test protocols, it never actually
reaches zero.  A felow by the name of "Diamandis" has done a lot of
work on PSA in women and detection of ultra-low amounts of PSA.  The
following website will provide more information for the interested
reader

http://www.utoronto.ca/acdclab/home.htm

...Best wishes and good health, ron

...

I'm hardly an expert on this but here are some thoughts concerning
it.

First, Allen must have some prostate tissue left over after the surgery
if his PSA rose.  Even if 100% of the prostate were removed by
the surgeon (which is difficult to know for sure), there must have
been some extra-prostatic tissue, i.e., prostate cells that spread
outside the prostate itself, causing the PSA.  The good news
about that is that these extra-prostatic tumor cells are often
within just a few millimeters of where the prostate was and so
are easily treated by the radiation beams.

Secondly, radiation doesn't necessarily kill the tumor cells.  It
damages them.  It especially damages the DNA in the cell, which
is needed for the cell to divide and reproduce itself.  But the
cell can continue living and continue producing PSA.  Eventually,
many of those damaged cells will die, but it could take years.
In the meantime, if the radiation treatment was successful, they
are no longer a threat because they can't spread and metastasize.

Radiation oncology is apparently a balancing act.  The idea is
to deliver just enough radiation to stop the cancer, but no more.
It would be possible to use really high powered radiation and
get a sure kill of all the prostate cells, but the collateral damage
would be unacceptable, possibly killing the patient or making his
life hell.  That's the reason why research in radiation focuses
mainly on getting more radiation to the cancer and less to the
rest of the body - something that involves more and more
sophisticated computer and sensor guided radiation beams
and seeds.

My impression of the numbers you've given, .09, .09, .05 is
that they are good.  I'm optimistic that Allen will pull through
this okay.

Good luck.

   Alan

I'm sure you've already gotten your answer and know that you are in a
territory of which some SRT patients only dream.  And, that 0.000 is
unreachable in any case.

My post is only to join the probable chorus of congratulations!!!  That is
great, great news.

0.0 is unreachable. Even females have a small reading.

Take heart 0.09 is less than 0.1. Anything less than 0.1 is considered
undetectible. Congratulations. Enjoy.

GD

Thanks to all for the discussion.  This was all very reassuring!  Here's
hoping for a continued trend downwards.  Take care, Debbie

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