Medical group to say men don't need prostate cancer screenings, source says

CNN.com ^ | 7 Oct 2011 | Elizabeth Cohen

[ModelBreaker]

I would have been dead by 58 without PSA screening. My tumor was not detected by DRE. It was all over my prostate, not localized. It was only a doubling of PSA over two years that lead to the biopsy.

As it is, I will very likely live to see my son graduate from college.

I’m curious as to how these studies weigh cost and benefits. Clearly, a lot of deaths are prevented by early screening and intervention. OTOH, a needle biopsy for a false positive is decidedly unpleasant and I assume it has a small, but measurable, rate of complications. How does a panel balance an unpleasant week after a biopsy that comes out negative for, say, 50 men against 3 men who live 20 years longer than they would have because they had cancer? Seems to me there have to be value judgments implicit in that balance that are never revealed in the study.

[uncbob]

Just from the number of people on this site who credit the PSA test with saving their lives makes this report VERY suspect

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

My doctor said that the PSA had so many false positives that it was meaningless, his recommendation was the annual digital examination.

I was diagnosed with possible prostate cancer in 1997 and the diagnoses was confirmed by needle biopsy. I had my surgery at the Medical Collage of Wisconsin. My surgeon was the Urology Department Chair. After five years of follow up, he told me that the 'standard of care' was a PSA test and they were dropping the digital exam. Comme ci comme ça...

Regards,
GtG

[Paleo Conservative]

My doctor said that the PSA had so many false positives that it was meaningless, his recommendation was the annual digital examination.

Well it's better to have a high false positive than a high false negative rate. If you get a false positive on a PSA, the worst ting that could happen is that it is followed up by a digital exam. I have a very low PSA, so I'm hoping I don't have a false negative.

[Paleo Conservative]

As a Urologist. Just this week alone I have had 3 patients with an elevated psa with normal rectal exams.All positive for cancer of the prostate.I gave 4 talks yesterday all again were of cancer of the picked up with psa’s. The key for psa is the age compared to the psa and any change in psa. The majority of patients we pick up these days is with PSA not rectal exams. A prostate nodule is probabably about 20 % of our group we find with cap. If you read the reference it says prostate cancer deaths.

Since getting a PSA done six months ago and getting a very low reading, I've read that taking ibuprofen and possibly other NSAIDs over a long term can cause low PSA readings and possibly help prevent prostate cancer. I've taken quite a number of NSAIDs over the last 15 years due to back trouble including the last 10 years since my surgery.