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# PSA test does not cut prostate cancer death risk
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/psa_prostate_cancer_death_0809120608/
- Published: 2012-08-09T19:07:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:23:28.000Z
- Description: In the PLCO trial of 76,685 men aged 55 to 74, annual PSA testing and rectal exams found more prostate cancers over 13 years but did not reduce deaths: 3.7 versus 3.4 deaths per 10,000 person-years, a difference the researchers say was not statistically significant.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Drug, Health News, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, PHD

Thursday Aug 9, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- The rationale behind prostate cancer screening is that early detection of the disease can prevent the disease by early treatment from progressing into an advanced disease, which kills patients. A new study in journal of National Cancer Institute has found prostate cancer screening based on prostate specific antigen (PSA) test and digital rectal examination (DRE) can't lower the number of deaths from prostate cancer even though it is able to find more cases of the disease.

Results from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial showed that during a 13 years of follow-up, the cumulative mortality rates from prostate cancer in the group receiving prostate cancer screening and the control group without receiving the test were 3.7 and 3.4 deaths per 10,000 person-years, respectively, which means the death risk in the intervention group was nine percent higher than that in the control group, but the finding was not statistically significant.

In the study led by G.L. Andriole of Division of Urologic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, MO and colleagues, 76,685 men aged 55 to 74 years were enrolled in the study between Nov 1993 and Jul. 2001 and randomly assigned to the intervention (study arm) which included organized screening of annual PSA test for six years and annual DRE and usual care (control arm). Th numbers of participants in both arms were about the same, 38,340 men in the study group vs. 38345 men in the control. Screening was completed in Oct 2006 and cases of prostate cancer and death from the disease were recorded through Dec 31, 2009.

At the end of the 13-year follow-up, 4,250 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the arm receiving prostate cancer screening, compared with 3815 in the control arm. Cumulative incidence rates for prostate cancer in the intervention was 108.4 per 10,000 person-years, compared to 97.1 per person-years, suggesting that the cancer rate in the study group was 12 percent higher, compared to that in the control group.

The researchers concluded "After 13 years of follow-up, there was no evidence of a mortality benefit for organized annual screening in the PLCO trial compared with opportunistic screening, which forms part of usual care, and there was no apparent interaction with age, baseline comorbidity, or pretrial PSA testing."

Some prostate cancer statistics: In 2012, an estimated 241,740 men are expected to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 28,170 will die from the disease or disease/treatment complications in the US, according to the National Cancer Institute.

In many cases, the diseas can be prevented by following a healthy lifestyle including a healthy diet and use of some dietary supplements.

It should be noted that men aged 70 or older are advised not to take the PSA test, which for them can do more harm than good. This age group of men are more likely to die from other health conditions than prostate cancer. Also PSA test is a bad tool for diagnosis because it does not accurately predict the disease and false positive cases can lead further harmful diagnosis and treatment. According to the inventor of this method, PSA test is best used to monitor the progression of the disease in prostate cancer patients. Many physicians use it anyway which obviously makes part of their income.