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Free psa test and blood test
Hello again, this time need your help with my husband blood test I don’t know what to do with his ferritin it’s getting worse and I don’t know how to read freePSA test he has 0.7 so I don’t understand if his results are not good. Can you please help me . My husband is 54yo. -
4 Replies
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Hey ,
First of all, all tests need to be interpreted in light of symptoms. For example, if your husband is just screening and assessing his risk of prostate cancer and has no complaints, these values need to be interpreted differently than when complaints are there.
Perhaps you could help us help you by explaining why these tests were done in the first place. Were there any symptoms?
If this test was done to assess the risks of prostate issues:
When it comes to assessing prostate cancer and enlarged (non-cancerous) prostates, ratios are measured in free PSA and Total PSA. The ratio is used to assess risks.This means:
• A high PSA ratio doesn’t necessarily mean the presence of prostate cancer/enlarged prostate (I’m assuming it’s done for this reason)
• A low PSA/enlarged prostate ratio doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of prostate cancer.The ratio can be used to see if additional exams need to be done.
The test shows the free PSA value (which is 0.7 ng/ml). The Total PSA is missing on the lab rapport though. To understand the risk, you will need to ask the lab to provide you with the Total PSA as well.Ferritin
Elevations in ferritin can be caused by quite a few things. For example, with infections, the body tries to sequester serum iron away and stores it as ferritin (which is the body’s storage for iron). Ferritin can be elevated when there is too much iron in the diet. For example, supplements can contain iron. Iron cookware can also contribute to iron in the diet. Here are some other reasons why ferritin can be elevated:
• There can be genetic reasons why ferritin is elevated (a common reason for hemochromatosis).
• Liver problems can cause elevations in ferritin as well.
• Drinking too much alcohol,
• Rheumatoid arthritis or other chronic inflammatory disorders
• Hyperthyroidism (which can also cause elevations in SHBG as seen in the lab results).-Usually, ferritin is assessed with other iron markers like serum iron, Iron Saturation and Total Iron Binding Capacity (TIBC) for example. If you like to understand why ferritin is elevated, you will need to have additional lab values measured.
Based on the list of possibilities of high ferritin, here are some recommendations you could discuss with your doctor:
• An iron panel (like I talked about above)
• A CBC (Complete Blood Count) including a WBC (White Blood Cell) differentiation.
• A Thyroid panel.
• Liver Function Tests.
• Rheumatoid factor and anti-CCP antibodies (to test for rheumatoid arthritis)
• (If PSA values turn out to be elevated: a simple urinary tract infection can elevate PSA values as well. In this case, you might want to assess • kidney function as well and
• CRP – a marker of inflammation primarily made in the liver)I hope this answer helps you on your way!
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Hi, Daniel thank you for your response so we did this test just because I thought it’s a good idea to do it and I didn’t know which one to choose so I chose free psa
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I can’t tell you how the rest of the world uses this test, but I can tell you what the Dutch guidelines are. The free PSA is only additionally measured when the total PSA is in a certain range.
Next time we will help choose better fitting labs! Benefits of being a B Better member
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Thank you so much
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