Prostate cancer

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'Prostate cancer tests useless'

16:50pm 10th September 2004 The PSA test commonly used to detect prostate cancer

is now all but useless for predicting the risk of the disease, leading

researchers have said.

The test measures for prostate specific antigen (PSA), a protein normally

produced by the prostate gland.

 

Raised PSA levels can lead to men undergoing radical surgery and treatment,

sometimes leaving them with serious long-term side-effects such as incontinence

and impotence.

 

 

 

But experts have increasingly come to believe that the test leads to unnecessary

treatment when men could be monitored and live with the cancer without it ever

causing any problem.

Now researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in the US have

declared: " The PSA era is over. "

 

They studied prostate tissues collected over 20 years, from the time it first

became standard to remove prostates in response to high PSA levels to the

present.

 

The team led by Professor Thomas Stamey said in the Journal of Urology that, as

a screening test, the PSA now indicated nothing more than the size of the

prostate gland.

 

Prof Stamey said: " Our study raises a very serious question of whether a man

should even use the PSA test for prostate cancer screening any more. "

 

PSA screening has become more commonplace in the US. In the UK there is no

formal screening programme for prostate cancer but the PSA test is being used

increasingly by doctors.

 

Earlier this year cancer experts in the UK voiced concerns that the test was

unable to distinguish between cancers which were " tigers " and those which were

" pussycats " , leading many into treatments they did not need.