According to a scientific report, fewer men undergo prostate biopsies and surgeries in the United States, after new recommendations discouraged them to test for prostate cancer.
The report is consistent with other research suggesting that prostate cancer screening procedures often confuse men and their doctors instead of simply informing them.
The latest report, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Surgery on Nov. 2, raises the question of whether the entire procedure of screening men for prostate cancer brings more benefits or disadvantages. Currently, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death in men.
The report also shows the guidelines that simplify the entire procedure men have to go through during cancer screening. According to Dr. Jim Hu, urologic oncologist at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, the researchers' concern is that a good portion of the men who may have dangerous cancers could die because of avoiding going through the entire screening procedure.
As the recommendations for the best medical practices in these cases are highly controversial, the doctor suggests they may have gone too far. As 240,000 U.S. men are diagnosed with the disease and approximately 27,000 die because of it every year, the means of identifying the disease should be simplified in order to encourage people to get tested regularly.
The medical team looked into the effects of the 2012 guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which recommended against blood testing through a specific method called prostate-specific antigen test for most of the men who underwent tests.
The USPSTF's official position was that a very small number of the men who get tested actually come up as having the disease. Among the men who were not in actual danger, some were given medicine that was unnecessary and caused multiple side effects, from impotence to incontinence. According to the current studies, one life is saved for every 1,000 men who are tested.
Following the USPSTF's recommendation, the number of biopsies for prostate cancer declined by 29 percent.
While the American Cancer Society agrees with the USPSTF's declarations, the American Urological Association doesn't recommend men younger than 54 go through the procedure, but states that the male population aged 55 to 59 should take it into consideration.
"The AUA continues to support a man's right to be tested for prostate cancer - and to have his insurance pay for it, if medically necessary," explains the AUA.
