Prostate Specific Antigen Testing May Be Unnecessary For Some Older Men

A new study claims that certain men aged 75 to 80 are unlikely to benefit from routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD, USA) and the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA, Bethesda, MD, USA) reviewed data from 849 men (122 with and 727 without prostate cancer) who participated in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA), and who had undergone regular PSA testing. The results of the study showed that among men who were over 75 with PSA levels less than 3 nanograms per milliliter, none died of prostate cancer and only one developed high-risk prostate cancer. In contrast, men of all ages with a PSA level of 3 nanograms per milliliter or greater had a continually rising probability of dying from prostate cancer. The researchers claim that if confirmed by future studies, these results could help determine more specific guidelines to determine when PSA -based screening might be safely discontinued. The study was published in the April 2009 issue of The Journal of Urology.

"We need to identify where we should best focus our health care dollars by concentrating on patients who can actually benefit from PSA testing,” said Edward Schaeffer, M.D., an assistant professor of urology at Johns Hopkins. "These findings give a very strong suggestion of when we can start to counsel patients on when to stop testing.”

While PSA screening remains a useful tool for helping detect early stages of prostate cancer and is credited with decreasing prostate cancer mortality, discontinuing unneeded PSA testing could significantly reduce the costs of screening and also potentially reduce morbidity resulting from additional tests or treatments.

Related Links:
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
U.S. National Institute on Aging