Finally, we are getting a little common sense discussion about the role of PSA screening.
Not to beat a dead horse, but as we all know the United Sates Preventive Task Force (USPTF) changed their rating of the PSA test from a D to a F. The result of this change is that many doctors, especially Family Practice Physicians are no longer providing the screening test to their patients. The current state of affairs is that a man will not be screened for prostate cancer until he is symptomatic. As those of us who have advanced prostate cancer know, when you have symptoms you most likely have developed metastatic prostate cancer (advanced prostate cancer). Metastatic prostate cancer is NOT curable and it is a terminal illness.
So, according to the USPTF we should not bother to screen men until they have an incurable terminable disease! Ok, I give up, where is the logic to this?
The bottom line is that stopping PSA screening could result in many more cases of advanced disease, actually according to a new study as many as 17,000 new cases of advanced prostate cancer each year in the United States alone! this 17,000 number was deduced from an analysis of data from the pre-PSA era.
the USPTF claimed that