Eight Misconceptions about Prostate-Specific Antigen

• Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) was discovered in the 1970s, with assays to detect PSA in blood approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1986. Almost from the very beginning, its role as a prostate cancer marker has been severely misunderstood. One of the most well-known misconceptions is that prostate cancer detectable by elevated PSA in asymptomatic men requires treatment, irrespective of stage and grade. Accordingly, when PSA testing to detect prostate cancer began in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most men with elevated PSA were biopsied and nearly all cancers detected were treated. It is estimated that in its first 20 years of use, PSA screening led to >1 million Americans suffering harm from radiotherapy or surgery to treat a cancer that would never become apparent before they died of another cause (1).More than 35 years later, PSA continues to be misunderstood. Here, we try to correct 8 common contemporary misconceptions about PSA. In brief, PSA may have a bad reputation, but it has remarkable properties—when used correctly—that make the clinical biochemistry of prostate cancer the envy of all other solid tumors.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Urologi och njurmedicin (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Urology and Nephrology (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Cancer och onkologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Cancer and Oncology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Male

Humans

Prostate-Specific Antigen

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)