Routine testing for prostate cancer does not save lives, study finds
Tyrone Pierre, of New Orleans, LA, attends a two-day free New Orleans Communities Are Responding Everyday (C.A.R.E.) Clinic for people with no health care insurance in New Orleans, LA, Tuesday, August 31, 2010. Patients were offered basic medical help, including HIV and PSA testing for prostrate cancer.
Routine screening for prostate cancer does not lower the risk of dying from the disease, according to the results of a large screening trial.
The Washington Post calls the findings "blow against prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing," while ABC News suggests they will reignite the "controversy over the benefits of annual testing."
Researchers led by Dr. Gerald Andriole, chief of urologic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Lous, found that men who underwent yearly screening for prostate cancer — including a digital rectal examination and a blood test for PSA levels — had the same chance of dying from prostate cancer as men who were tested less often.
"The finding is along the lines that routine mass screening of men is probably not very beneficial as far as reducing the chance of dying from prostate cancer," Andriole said.
The results support a previous report by the same researchers that found no difference in deaths seven to 10 years after the screening program started, according to Reuters.
They are also consistent with recent draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommending that average-risk men not undergo regular PSA screening, according to a researcher who worked on the study.
And the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued draft recommendations in December saying that available data did not support routine screening in men younger than 75.
ABC News, meanwhile, reported that while the American Urological Association recommended that all men 40 and older be offered a screening test, the American Cancer Society said screening would also be harmful.
"The test is far from perfect, there are many false positives because of other conditions that can elevate PSA levels, such as an enlarged prostate," ABC News quoted Dr. David Penson, director of urologic surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, as saying. "That can lead to a cascade of events — prostate biopsies are not comfortable and carry a risk of infection and a small risk of dying."
Andriole, however, stressed that some men — those who are young and healthy, have a long life expectancy or have a strong family history of prostate cancer — might benefit from screening. African-American men, who are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer as Caucasian men, should also be regularly screened.