Cancer was detected more often in the screened group, but mostly it was low-grade, with a questionable need of treatment. After an average of 10 years of follow-up, prostate cancer death rates in both groups were nearly identical. Now the latest study once again casts doubt on PSA screening as an effective public health tool.īritish scientists divided more than 400,000 men between the ages of 50 and 69 into two groups: one was screened for prostate cancer with a single PSA test, and the other wasn’t tested for the disease at all. Still, screening research continues, in the hopes that some lifesaving benefits may be found. And with mounting evidence that survival benefits from screening pale in comparison with the harms from overtreatment - particularly incontinence and impotence - the pendulum has steadily swung away from it. Screening relies on a highly imperfect measure, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test, which is prone to false-positive results. To screen or not to screen for prostate cancer? This remains an important question.
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