The debate over prostate cancer tests
It would seem all men should have PSA checks to detect cancer. But the medical community is divided. Some, even the scientist who discovered PSA, see more harm than good.
By Chris Woolston, Special to the Los Angeles Times
March 7, 2011
Men of a certain age have heard the pitch many times: If they care about their health, they really should get their PSA checked. The simple blood test, men are told, can help uncover hidden cases of prostate cancer and potentially save their lives.
More than 20 million American men get their PSA measured each year. Doctors often include the test as a routine part of checkups for men older than 40, and many insurance companies flat-out require it. Cancer awareness campaigns frequently tout PSA tests as an important weapon against the disease, something like a male version of mammograms. The fact that prostate cancer kills more than 27,000 men a year may make the test seem like a no-brainer.
But when it comes to cancer screening, few things are as simple as they seem at first.
The PSA test is currently under attack on many fronts. While some experts credit the test with saving tens of thousands of lives each year, others say the benefits are over-hyped and might just be an illusion. And because treatments for prostate cancer can cause complications such as impotence and incontinence, there's a growing fear that PSA testing ends up harming far more men than it helps.
A quick primer: Adult prostate glands make prostate specific antigen, or PSA, a protein that helps make semen. Healthy prostates tend to release only a trickle of the protein into the bloodstream, but cancer generally turns up the flow. Men with a PSA of more than 4 nanograms per milliliter of blood or with PSA readings that jump more than 0.35 ng/mL from one year to the next are usually offered a needle biopsy to check the prostate for cancer…. www.baltimoresun.com/health/la-he-cancer-psa-test-20110307,0,7991881.story
20110307 BaltoSun The debate over prostate cancer tests
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