A blood test called PSA can help to select men of prostate cancer, but it can also lead to unnecessary treatment.
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Former President Joseph Viden was in the news that he had developed prostate cancer. The most commonly diagnosed cancer among men In the United States
Prostate-specific antigensOr PSA, screening tests are incomplete tools for detecting prostate cancer, according to doctors and public health experts.
Part of the problem is to identify and treat aggressive cancers such as Biden, and to be ill male with slow -growing cancer. An autopsy has been found In the 70s, this disease did not have prostate cancer because one -third of white men and more than one -third of black men had no prostate cancer.
Dr. Brent Rose, an associate professor at the University of California, California, said, “PSA is a cancer screening test alone.”
The test measures the PSA level, a protein generated by normal and malignant prostate cells in the blood. High PSA can be a marker of cancer. It also promotes wrong positive or inactive cancer, causes painful biopsy, and can be treated excessively with punishment side effects, including erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence and bowel dysfunction.
“PSA screening is beneficial,” Rose said. “But it’s a risk, so it’s a personal decision to select PSA.”
The key is to take the goal of aggressive cancers while waiting for cancer that may not be cumbersome. Doctors have been walking on this tightrope since they started to use PSA tests regularly to select prostate cancer of healthy men in the 1990s. There are no other tests that effectively screen prostate cancer. Second deadly cancer Tumor experts said to American men.
The history of whether it is conflicting
Attempts to balance the damage as possible and the number of saved life 20 years of change -Polarity -Public Health Guidelines for PSA screening. In 2012, the US Prevention Service Task Force advised all sorting and announced that in 2018, men between 55 and 69 years of age discussed the screening inspection with medical service providers. Various doctor groups provide conflicting guidance for this age group.
But with advice to the elderly, the US Prevention Service Task Force was somewhat consistent. In 2008, independent expert panels did not screen men over 75 years old, and since 2018, the panel advised to screen the selection of 70 years of age or older.
The 82 -year -old Biden obviously followed the map. He was a PSA screening test in 2014 when he was 71 or 72 years old, a spokesman said.
Task Force for men between 55 and 69 years old Recommended Before deciding whether to take a PSA test, we talk to your medical service provider for your preference. Recommendations are classified as grade C. In other words, only small profits are provided and insurers may not cover this.
Tumor experts who interviewed this story said it could be difficult to find time to talk about a topic that is as valuable as the prostate cancer screening test. And some people may welcome what is called “sharing decisions,” but others are worried about it. Nevertheless, the only advice for men now is to talk with the doctor carefully.
PSA test case
Dr. Alicia Morgans, a genital medical tumor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, hopes to recognize this problem and solve the new guidelines that the task force is currently drafting. In August, she met a volunteer panel as the chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee of Zero Prostate Cancer.
Morgans believes that the current guidelines are based on a flawed clinical trial. Men, selected by PSA tests, concluded that they are less likely to die from prostate cancer than men assigned to unexpected groups. But almost 90%of men in the control group had at least one PSA test before or tested, so the results became mud -fledged, she said.
Morgans wants to see the strengthening of the recommendation, so more men are screened earlier, with more vulnerable men and men with prostate cancer, black men and family history.
“I take care of not only people with prostate cancer, but also people with treatable prostate cancer,” she said. “So my point of view is actually distorted by the fact that I want to diagnose when work can be treated.”
The same is true of Dr. Matthew Cooperberg, a urologist and professor at the University of San Francisco. He tried to partially change the name of the early stage prostate cancer to alleviate the stress of cancer diagnosis. One possible name, “acinar new creature“Unusual growth is described, but there is a lack of possibility of spreading or killing. Cooperberg also advocates to monitor men with high PSA before biopsal.
“Men must have a PSA test in middle -aged to find aggressive prostate cancer,” he said. “If we find a low -end disease regardless of cancer, we should not treat cancer. We should not treat it. We only monitor it with active surveillance. If we do so, we can erase this cancer.”
A new approach to prostate cancer screening appears.
Dr. Tyler Seibert, a radiologist and associate professor of the University of California, is not optimistic about eliminating prostate cancer. But he is also dedicated to finding ways to identify bad prostate cancer and treat them alone.
When doctors first started the PSA screening test, he said, “If you find a kind of prostate cancer, there was a family with a flawless treatment that you should actively treat that kind of prostate cancer.” Many of them would not harm the patient. “
SEIBERT has arrived a new era of prostate-arm screening, Seibert believes. Today, when the PSA test rises, instead of a man with a biopsy, he and more prostate cancer experts are recommended to receive MRI first and wait and wait.
“For patients with prostate cancer with low risk, we have strong evidence that we can follow them closely, and basically we can continue their lives.”
SEIBERT does not mean that everyone is rising and actually required cancer treatment for everyone to receive periodic blood tests. But most of his patients were used to protocols, he said.
“I’m a bit nervous every time I get a blood test.” “If you can tolerate it and don’t think it will cause too much anxiety for you, the screening has a lot of meaning.”
Ronnie Cohen is a freelancer health journalist located in San Francisco Bay.
