Prostate cancer screening may reduce mortality

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Screening for prostate specific antigen may reduce the risk of death from prostate cancer by as much as 35 per cent.
There are several ongoing studies into the value of prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening in men to see if it can reduce mortality from prostate cancer by early detection. A team at the University of Toronto now reports on a study that compared men with metastatic prostate cancer with men who did not.

Screening history was studied for all the men. Analysis of the data then revealed that PSA screening can reduce the risk of metastatic prostate cancer by as much as 35 per cent. Clearly then, screening has value. Set against this, however, is the risk of a false positive result from screening - that is, an elevated PSA level may lead to a man being investigated when he does not actually have cancer.

Source
Journal of Urology August 2005

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