This is a really interesting (at least to me) video out of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Remember that UCSF and UCLA were the two institutions that did considerable work to get the Ga-68 PSMA PET scan approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2020.

First, at the 3:04 minute mark in the video, he presents the number of positive scans by PSA level. Interestingly, he references the same study I posted earlier. What differs in this presentation from the other one I posted is that this looks at PSA values <0.2 and from 0.2-0.49, whereas the other study just looked at positive scans for PSA values <0.5. However, something seems off between the two.

In the original study, it showed a positive detection rate of about 38% for PSA values <0.5. In this video, however, the chart appears to show a positive detection rate at the <0.2 PSA level somewhere north of 40%, and a positive detection rate at the 0.2-0.49 PSA level somewhere north of 50%. Perhaps he wasn’t all that skilled at making bar charts in PowerPoint, but something is amiss.

Where I’m encouraged is that it appears that they are, in fact, able to detect cancer at my PSA level or even lower. The only question is, at what rate? I’ll stick with the one in three value for now, which is still better than zero.

I did email one of the doctors on the team at UCSF, and his response was:

There are no guarantees, but there is a chance that a PSMA PET could detect a site of recurrence with a PSA of greater than 0.2. The chance of detection usually increases as the PSA goes up.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of his own product, but I think that’s more to couch expectations because this is so new and even he is still trying to figure it out. (I admit, I was surprised that he even responded, so I’m thankful for that.)

I’ve got a good list of questions ready for my appointment on Tuesday, and I’m sure I’ll spend some of this holiday weekend adding to it and refining it.

Stay tuned for more.