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National Awareness Campaign on
PSA Testing
and Prostate Cancer
The American Urological Association (AUA) is launching a national awareness
campaign on PSA testing and prostate cancer. The organization acknowledges
that controversy and confusion cloud the nation's understanding of PSA
testing. AUA wants to clear up some of the issues.
A common – and deceptive – argument against PSA testing is that men
do not die of prostate cancer; they die with it. But prostate cancer
can be an unpredictable complex, and deadly disease. The PSA test
allows men to detect cancer early, make decisions while options are available,
and potentially treat their cancer aggressively.
Without the PSA test, prostate cancer could be five or more years developed
before being diagnosed and therefore, that much more likely to limit men's
treatment options, their response to treatment, and their lives.
More than 40,000 men are killed by prostate cancer every year.
Experts agree that early detection's especially important younger men.
The AUA encourages men 45 years and older to learn the facts about prostate
cancer and options for detection and treatment.
AUA urges high-risk younger men and all men 50 and over to ask their
doctor for the PSA test.
That the PSA test detects prostate cancer early is now well established,
and early detection increases a man's chances for survival. The PSA
test can detect the presence of cancer as much as five years earlier than
diagnosis by other means.
An annual PSA test provides doctors with benchmarks for a patient's
PSA levels. Monitoring PSA levels as a part of an annual checkup
offers doctors and patients the opportunity to intervene before prostate
cancer becomes incurable.
The AUA's official PSA policy endorses the American Cancer Society's
position and states that both PSA and digital rectal examination should
be offered annually beginning at age 50 to men who have at least a 10-yer
life expectance, and to younger men who are at high risk (i.e., men with
a strong family history of prostate cancer and African American men).
Information should be provided to patients regarding potential risks
and benefits of intervention. In recent years there has been a reduction
in mortality rates from prostate cancer, but it has not been established
to what extent this statistic is a direct result of PSA screening.
Source: Quest, Edited by William J. Catalona, M.D.
and published by the Urological Reserach Foundation |
