Symptoms that might suggest prostate cancer include worsening
If you have any of these symptoms it is important to see your doctor promptly. Please remember to bring a urine sample to the appointment so that it can be tested. It is not safe to request a PSA test without discussing your symptoms with a doctor first.
The information on this page is adapted from resources developed by Cancer research UK. You can access their site directly using the following link
CLICK HERE to visit cancer research UK ( PSA screening )
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PSA is a protein produced by both normal and cancerous prostate cells. It is normal for all men to have some PSA in their blood. A high level of PSA can be a sign of cancer. But your PSA level can also be raised in prostate conditions that are not cancer (are benign) or infection.
A PSA test on its own doesn’t normally diagnose prostate cancer. There is evidence from the research that doing a PSA test doesn’t saves lives. Your GP will discuss the test with you
Screening means testing people for early stages of a disease before they have any symptoms. For screening to be useful the tests:
Many prostate cancers grow very slowly and don’t cause men any problems in their lifetime. Overall, evidence from trials of prostate screening has shown that prostate cancer screening does not reduce the number of men dying from prostate cancer
The Cancer Research UK CAP trial looked at whether a single PSA blood test would reduce the number of men dying of prostate cancer. This was a large UK study with over 400,000 men between the ages of 50 and 69 taking part. Around half the men had a PSA blood test the other half didn’t.
The results in early 2018 showed that the number of men dying from prostate cancer was the same in both groups. This was after 10 years of follow up. The researchers say that this trial doesn’t support PSA testing as a screening test for prostate cancer. They say we need more research to find a better screening test.
This supports what the 2013 Cochrane review found. This looked at screening research from a number of trials and concluded that prostate cancer screening did not reduce the number of men dying from prostate cancer.
Research looking at doing more than one test doesn’t show that this would help either. Increasing the number of tests could increase the level of harms such as diagnosing those cancers that wouldn’t cause any harm (overdiagnosis). Many men have side effects from treatment and the risks of routine PSA screening outweigh the benefits
Some men are at higher risk of prostate cancer than others. These are:
The risk of prostate cancer also increases as men get older.
The evidence so far doesn’t suggest that routinely screening these men would help prevent deaths from prostate cancer. In fact, it might lead to men having treatment for prostate cancer even though that cancer wouldn’t have caused any problems or symptoms.
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