After a prostatectomy, how can a man have a PSA level without a prostate gland? What is producing the PSA protein material that is in the blood stream if there is no prostate gland?
After the prostate gland has been completely removed, any PSA in the blood is produced by prostate cancer cells that have left the prostate gland and spread to other areas of the body. However, sometimes the PSA can appear to be elevated because of a laboratory error. All elevated PSA levels after surgery should be re-checked to rule out a laboratory error. For practical purposes, it is very difficult to detect PSA when levels are less than 0.2 ng/ml. Therefore, we consider any PSA value less than 0.2 as being negligible.
