PSA screening

Prostate-Specific Antigen Screening

PSA screening utility continues to be controversial. The latest guidelines from the US preventive services task force, a nonbiased body with no interest in testing or not testing, recommends against routine PSA testing for prostate cancer. This is because of the risks of overtreating with chemo, radiation, and surgery out-weigh the benefits of the tests. You are more likely to die with mild prostate cancer than from it.

Unless you have a strong family history of prostate cancer in a brother or father, or have urinary symptoms like urgency, frequency, or difficulty starting your stream, or have an abnormal prostate exam by your doctor, where he or she feels a mass, enlargement or a nodule, there is no need to do routine testing at any age. Men between 50-75 should consider the test if at risk, yet age >75 it is not recommended to do the test unless someone has a prostate cancer history.