Decline in prostate cancer screening

Far fewer USA men are being diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and getting blood tests to detect the disease since an influential government-appointed panel recommended against routine screening of all men, an American Cancer Society study found.

A study that tracked tens of thousands of midlife and older men for more than 20 years has found that vigorous exercise and other healthy lifestyle habits may cut their chances of developing a lethal type of prostate cancer by up to 68 percent. Dr Diamandis and his team foresee a future where men would first be tested using existing methods, such as the PSA test. Those men with raised PSA levels would then be further screened with the semen test, to show whether the biomarkers of prostate cancer are present and zero in on who really needs an invasive biopsy.

The panel cited evidence that screening might do more harm than good: Prostate cancer is often slow-growing, and may never advance to the point where it threatens a man’s life.

Penson, who wrote an editorial about the new research, said the across-the-board decrease in early-stage prostate cancers shows men aren’t being offered screening anymore, and it likely means there will be an increase in advanced cancers in coming years.

The gene we examined acts as a more effective biomarker to predict the aggressiveness of patients’ prostate cancer than any others which have been used before.

Kahnoski recommends men talk to their primary care doctor to see what’s right for them when it comes to screenings.

This project was supported by the Intramural Research Department of the American Cancer Society. “If your loved one died because there was no screening, that makes a big difference to you”. “That’s the dilemma with PSA testing”. About 33,519 fewer men received a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2012 than in 2011, they estimated.

“With one man dying every 19 minutes from prostate cancer, it’s imperative that men who are at risk be tested and made aware of their options”, said ZERO CEO Jamie Bearse.

For most men that discussion should begin at age 50, according to the American Cancer Society.

Sammon’s group analyzed NHIS data for 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2013 (n=20,757) to compare rates of screening PSA tests before and after the USPSTF 2012 recommendation.

However, 2010 statistics from the SA National Cancer Registry (NCR), the latest available, suggest South African black men have a lower risk of prostate cancer than other population groups.

There have been 11 clinical trials testing the effects of PSA screening, Brawley said, and only two have found benefits for men’s lives.

Dr. David Penson, a urologic surgeon at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn., also expressed concerns. “I’m a little surprised”, said Georgetown’s Lin, a former member of the preventive services task force.

Doctors on both sides of the debate also agree it will take more time before anyone knows how the drop in screening and diagnoses will affect one obviously important outcome of this debate: What happens to the death rate from prostate cancer?