PSA prostate cancer screening: could it have more benefits than first estimated?
Research teams have demonstrated wider benefits of utilizing the prostate-specific antigen blood test to screen for prostate cancer.
Research teams from Weill Cornell Medicine (NY, USA), Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (WA, USA), University Hospitals Cleveland (OH, USA) and Case Western Reserve University (OH, USA) have demonstrated vital benefits of utilizing the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test to screen for prostate cancer. The research specifically highlighted the screening benefits in Black men, who have a high prostate cancer mortality and morbidity rate.
The research, which was published in NEJM Evidence, highlighted through using epidemiologic data that more men have been diagnosed and treated as a consequence of PSA screening than was originally first estimated. Over a decade ago, it was estimated that one death was prevented for every 23 men diagnosed with prostate cancer as a consequence of PSA screening.
You may also be interested in:
- Pharmacokinetic drug–drug interactions: an insight into recent US FDA-approved drugs for prostate cancer
- Portable quantitative screening test for prostate-specific antigen at point-of-care
- Worm your way to diagnosis: ‘worm-on-a-chip’ device could be used to diagnose lung cancer
However, these new findings demonstrated that one death was prevented for every 11−14 men diagnosed with prostate cancer (as a consequence of the PSA screening program) and every 7−11 men treated for the disease.
The lead author, Spyridon Basourakos, a resident in urology at Weill Cornell Medicine, underlined the improvement upon the previous estimates of overdiagnoses and overtreatment of prostate cancer, supporting how important the PSA screening blood test has become and the value of the test in clinics.
Sources: Basourakos SP, Gulati R, Vince RA et al. Harm-to-benefit of three decades of prostate cancer screening in Black men. NEJM. Evidence, doi:10.1056 (2022) (Epub ahead of print); Weill Cornell medicine press release: https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2022/05/benefits-of-psa-prostate-cancer-screening-found-to-be-more-favorable-than-previous
