Two new studies appearing online in the March 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine question once again the importance of PSA test in preventing prostate cancer.

 

Many studies have shown that the progress of the disease is so slow in some patients that they end up dying because of other conditions they develop. That’s why, the need of a PSA test to diagnose prostate cancer was and still remains a subject of controversy in the research world.

 

One of the studies, the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer trial, involved nearly 80,000 men in the US who were given either annual screening with PSA or digital rectal exams or usual care. After seven years, 2,820 cancers had been diagnosed in the screening group compared with 2,322 in the control group. After 10 years, 3,452 men in the screening group were diagnosed with cancer compared with 2,974 in the control group.

 

When it comes to morbidity, at 7 years after the beginning of the study, there were 50 prostate cancer deaths in the screening group compared with 44 in the control group. At 10 years, there were 92 prostate cancer deaths in the screening group and 82 in the control group.

 

The other study involved 162,000 men in Europe and found a 20 percent reduction in deaths -- which was only barely significant statistically because of the small number of deaths on which it was based.

 

“If screening is beneficial, it is beneficial in a very small way,” said the American Cancer Society's Otis Brawley, who wasn't involved in either study.