Objectives: A population kinetic approach based on PSA clearance (CL(PSA)) may be a more rational strategy to characterize prostate-specific antigen (PSA) decrease profile after prostate surgery than the commonly used method (half-life from mono/bi-exponential models).
Methods: We used 182 post-adenomectomy PSA concentrations from 56 benign prostatic hyperplasia patients to build, with NONMEM software, a multi-exponential and a CL(PSA) model for comparison.
Results: The best multi-exponential model was PSA(t)=4.96e(-)(0.269t)+3.10e(-)(0.16t)+0.746e(+)(0.0002t) with a stable median residual PSA at 0.64 ng/mL. The best model parametrized with clearance was CL(PSA)=0.0229()(AGE/69)(3.78). Akaike information criteria and standard errors favored the CL(PSA) model. Median peripheral zone and transitional zone productions were 0.034 ng/mL/cm(3) and 0.136 ng/mL/g. A threshold at 2 ng/mL on day 90 allowed for a diagnostic of biochemical relapse diagnostic.
Conclusions: The population CL(PSA) model was superior to the multi-exponential approach for investigating individual post-adenomectomy PSA decreases.