ELIMINATION OF SERUM-FREE AND TOTAL PROSTATE-SPECIFIC ANTIGEN AFTER RADICAL RETROPUBIC PROSTATECTOMY

Elimination kinetics of serum total and free prostate-specific antigen were studied for a ten days course after radical retropubic prostatec tomy on 11 patients suffering from organ confined prostate cancer. Sam ples were taken before operation, immediately after finishing the oper ation and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 h after prostatectomy and then once a day f or the following ten days. The measurements were performed with AxSym assays from Abbott Laboratories. The elimination of both total and fre e prostate-specific antigen followed a biphasic kinetics. In the fast phase, the average of the individual elimination half-lives of total a nd free prostate-specific antigen amounted to 6.3 h (SD = 6.1 h; range : 0.55 to 37.1 h) and 0.57 h (SD = 0.18 h; range: 0.22 to 0.89 h), res pectively. In the slow phase, total prostate-specific antigen disappea red with an average half-life of 85.6 h (SD = 11 h; range: 47.2 to 261 .7 h) and free prostate-specific antigen with an average half-life of 14.4 h (SD = 10.4 h; range: 2.4 to 30.3 h). These results might be sig nificant for the use of free and total prostate-specific antigen and i ts ratio as a diagnostic and prognostic tool.