Prostate Cancer Treatment Home > What's a Good Reading For a PSA Test?

What's a Good Reading For a PSA Test?

Conversely What Is A High PSA Reading?

Perhaps your prostate has been acting up and you've been told your PSA is somewhat elevated. What has you asking "What's a good reading for a PSA test?"

Though 4 is the upper limit or highest you want to see for a so called "normal reading" there is no guarantee that anything four or under rules out the risk of you having cancer or BPH. In fact PSA screening results should be taken only as a guide. They are part of the process but do not give you the complete picture of what's going on with your prostate.

You see, in a normal prostate, or one which is not cancerous or enlarged, only a small amount of PSA enters the blood stream. But if you've got even early stage cancer this process gets disrupted so that more flows in to your blood.

2 ng/ml is generally considered to be a decent PSA reading for men in the 40-50 age group.

As one gets older however, the "normal" value tends to increase. So there is probably not a lot to worry about if a reading of 4 -5.5 is reported for those with 60-70 candles on their birthday cake.

Guess what I'm trying to say is what may be high or abnormal for some may not be high or abnormal for all.

Another point to remember is that things like sex, prostatitis, urinary infections even cycling, can also elevate your PSA level. This is why I said this test can't be thought of as a 100% reliable indicator of prostate health. And why also you may need to have a second round of blood work done to verify the first results.

What's a better indicator might be the rate of increase in your prostate-specific antigen or PSA velocity.

It becomes a cause of concern when your PSA velocity, or the rate at which the antigen increases over a series of tests, rises dramatically. A smaller rise may be associated with small localized tumors. That's because typical prostate cancer grows slowly over a period of 5-10 years. So the variation may not be much and you may not have cancer symptoms either. In fact as many as 15% of those who turned out to have cancer had PSA readings under 4 ng/ml.

Another point -- if you are over 70 there may not be much variation in your PSA scores at all.

If you've read about this topic you know there is no clear consensus on what makes for a absolutely certain PSA threshold. The limitations of these tests are many. Here are three:

• It cannot be solely relied on for detecting cancer.
• It may not show cancer if the prostate cancer has spread to other parts of your body.
• It can show both false positive and negative results. If it shows a higher PSA value you will still have to undergo a battery of tests to rule out cancer. And if it shows a lower value you may still have cancer.

Frustrating I know.

Which is why some feel a PSA-f test or free to total PSA gives a better reading when detecting cancer. The thinking being if the free PSA reading is less than 10% it definitely shows cancer.

Men with BPH have higher levels of free PSA or unbound PSA in the blood.

Basically prostate cancer can be confirmed only after a biopsy. PSA tests on average should only be taken as an indicator of possible problems (or lack thereof) and nothing else.