Dear Robert,
Prostascint in theory sounded very good when they were developing it. But on testing it was found to have a very high rate of false positives and false negatives. In statistical terms, it had poor sensitivity and poor specificity.
I am not a urologist. So perhaps I am completely off base here. But my personal feelings are that if this test were more accurate I would think it would be standard of care to determine if a small prostate cancer had spread to the local pelvic lymph nodes or not. But it is not an accurate test, and I doubt it will ever be a standard of care. It is wrong often enough that I personally would not base any decision about health on anything that test concluded.
What I would think would be a far better test would be a PET scan. It will show if the pelvic lymph nodes were infiltrated with cancer, and it is a very accurate test, and it is the standard of care for staging workups of almost all cancers, including prostate.
If you have prostate cancer, and I am assuming you do, don't take any action based on my comments. Get an opinion or a second opinion from an oncologist. If you have only seen your urologist and have not yet seen an oncologist, times-a-wastin! If you are looking for a top of the line facility to go to, pick one near where you live from the following list of top cancer facilities 2006:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-hospitals/rankings/ Best of Luck,
-Amnia