According to new research, not all men with elevated levels of PSA (prostate specific antigen) require a prostate biopsy to test for prostate cancer. These non-cancer elevations could cause many men to be biopsied, who other wise would have went by undetected. This often leads to unnecessary treatment and increased rate of side effects.
The research comes from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., M.P.H, and coauthored by Halcyon G. Skinner, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The problem is that, as men age, they often develop microscopic cancers in the prostate that are clinically insignificant,” said Dr. Gary Schwartz. “If it weren’t for the biopsy, these clinically insignificant cancers, which would never develop into fatal prostate cancer, would never be seen.”
Researchers analyzed data from 1,273 men who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2006, and who did not report any present infection or inflammation of the prostate gland, prostate biopsy in the past month, or history of prostate cancer at the time of the survey.
Those men who had a traceable level of PSA after therapy have less possibility of biochemical failure than other men do and a strong chance of being cured.
The full report can be found in the current issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.