In the U.S., doctors usually get suspicious when a PSA level is 4.0 ng/mL. But studies show that many men with levels well above 4.0 ng/mL do not have cancer. And many men with prostate cancer have PSA scores well below this level. There are a lot of ways to tweak the PSA test to try to get better results.
The Standard Deviation Formula. In this formula, x is the value of the mean, N is the sample size, and x i represents each data value from i=1 to i=N.. The â symbol indicates that you must add up the sum. (x 1 - x) 2 + (x 2 - x) 2 + (x 3 - x) 2 + (x 4 - x) 2 + (x 5 - x) 2. . . + (x N-x) 2.
For instance, in a normal distribution, a jump of 0.5 s.d. (one half of one standard deviation) is equivalent to moving from the 50th to the 69th percentile, but it's also equivalent to the difference between the 84th and 93rd percentiles.