Risk among men with a family history of prostate cancer could be inflated by increased diagnosis seeking

A new study from Department of Urology at Helsingborg Hospital, Sweden suggests that the of risk of prostate cancer in men with a known family history of the disease could be inflated because such men are more likely to seek a diagnosis, further intensifying the controversial debate on whether PSA testing does more harm than good.

Experts writing in the same journal propose that if you consider that many men in the population at large may have the disease but don’t take a test to find it, then cases of men who seek a diagnosis because a brother or father has tested positive, will exaggerate any familial link.

You can read a paper on the study and the accompanying editorial in the 19 August advanced online issue of Journal of the National Cancer Institute .