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Public release date: 04 March 2009
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The Prostate Cancer Foundation position: PSA screening remains a valuable tool
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) reiterated its position that PSA screening remains a valuable tool, in combination
with other tools, for identifying potential prostate disease, including cancer. They did that in responding to continued
debate over PSA screening, and today’s American Cancer Society statement. PCF is also calling for more reasoned debate
that empowers patients and their physicians and improves patients’ understanding of PSA data,
prostate cancer questions and treatment options. According to Prostate Cancer Foundation, every man has the right to know if
he has cancer and to make informed decisions with his urologist. This right dialog between patients, family members and
urologists requires to be based on the pros and cons of screening and treatment options.
A high controversy has risen over screening for the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) because it is not cancer-specific.
Further, once cancer is diagnosed, it is still very difficult using PSA screening, to differentiate between the indolent
(slow-growing) and very aggressive, potentially lethal, varieties of
prostate cancer. As a consequence, overtreatment of some patients does often occur.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation supports the valuable guidelines laid out by the American Urological Association that call for a
baseline PSA screening at 40 years old followed up by a strategy based upon the patient’s specific health status and
family history, developed by both physician and patient. If cancer is found, risk factors including family and patient
histories, a physical exam, Gleason scores, PSA velocity, and personal valuable preferences should all be considered when
developing an individualized treatment plan that is best suited for the patient.
The debate also underscores the unmet and urgent need for more research directed toward developing better, more
prostate cancer-specific biomarkers and diagnostic tests. Until new valuable diagnostics are available, experts need to guard
against telling patients not to be screened.
As the nation looks to reform healthcare, an important strategy for attaining real cost savings is increased investment
in research so healthcare providers can cure patients earlier and over treat less. Prostate cancer, by incidence, is to
men what breast cancer is to women, but federal funding of research for this disease is approximately 40 percent lower.
With many American families burdened by both prostate and breast cancers, many prostate cancer organizations are working
to increase investment and achieve the same crucial success in funding as the breast cancer community.
PCF-funded researchers are making crucial progress in identifying new biomarkers that could one day make the PSA test
obsolete. At the same time, PCF experts have calculated that having the ability to distinguish between lethal and
non-lethal or indolent varieties of prostate cancer might have saved an estimated $30 billion dollars between 1986
and 2005. With the tools to identify which patients had aggressive prostate cancer, overtreatment could have been
avoided and more lives would have been saved by directing intensive care to those who needed it most.
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SOURCE Prostate Cancer Foundation
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