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WELCOME!
PSA Threshold 4 ng/Ml
A US urologist says American men should get a PSA test at age 40 and continue to be screened every other year.
Early screening and regular follow ups, says Dr. H. Ballentine Carter of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, would save the lives of 5% of those now dying of prostate cancer. This translates into close to two thousand men a year saved from the ravages of the commonest cancer in US men and the second leading cause of male cancer death.
At the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Dallas Dr. Carter unveiled a computer-simulated mathematical model of what happens to patients if prostate cancer, left undetected, follows its natural course. He compared this with what would happen as a result of screening and early treatment.
PSA testing at age 40 and continuing every other year, Dr. Carter estimates, would reduce prostate cancer deaths by 5 per cent. Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in US men and the second leading cause of cancer death for men. About 38,000 men a year die of the disease.
Dr. Carter said, according to Reuters, that "'...there are no strong data...'" to support the delayed screening policy of the American Urological Association and the American College of Physicians. Both those organizations advise doctors to wait till a patient is 50 before offering him yearly PSA testing and digital rectal exams.
Early screening, Dr. Carter said, would ensure that the number of unnecessary biopsies would be "drastically reduced." This would counteract the objection that although screening may save lives it subjects some men who turn out to be cancer-free to unnecessary biopsies.
From the health care policy point of view -- not necessarily identical with the individual patient's best interest -- lowering the PSA screening threshold from 4 ng/mL to 2.5 or 3 ng/mL may not be helpful. Dr. Carter says that a more sensitive threeshold "didn't significantly lower deaths but did significantly increase biopsies." He advises sticking with the traditional threshold of 4ng/mL.
Jacquie Strax with Jim Fulks
E-mail [email protected]prostate cancer survivor news
http://www.psa-rising.com
©1999
Updated July 1, 1999
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