The PSA flip-flopping continues for men with prostate cancer. Now a major retrospective review published in the journal Cancer by researchers from the University of Rochester asserts in no uncertain terms that getting rid of PSA testing will amount to triple the number of men who present with advanced prostate cancer. The PSA test has been coming under fire in the last few years and even prompted the man who discovered the PSA test to wish he'd never discovered or developed it in the first place. The problem has been a case of overdiagnosis and overtreatment in many patients who, it is believed, would never have required the treatment in the first place.
"Our analyses suggest that, if the pre-PSA era incidence rates were present in the modern U.S. population, then the total number of men presenting with M1 prostate cancer would be approximately three times greater than the number actually observed," concluded the authors. "We believe that these estimates must be taken into consideration (bearing in mind the limitations of observational data) when public health policy-level recommendations are made regarding PSA screening."
Just last year, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation against routine PSA screening tests, and a panel of experts finalized the recommendation, arguing that the test was doing more harm than good.
This recommendation had the support of both the American Cancer Society and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, among other major groups.
The question now becomes, will the USPSTF respond to these findings? Will they back off their latest recommendation? And finally, will men and their doctors get a reliable answer any time soon regarding standard PSA screening?
Source: MedPage Today
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