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On Monday, the U.S. Preventive services task force recommended against the routine use of the prostate cancer screening test called prostate specific antigen or PSA. They concluded the blood test's harms outweigh the benefits.
Dr. Marlene-Murphy-Setzo, a urologist at St. Francis Hospital's Curtis D. Robinson Men's Health Institute, says she is concerned that no urologists or oncologists sat on the panel making the recommendations and that the panel did not consider patients at higher risk for the disease in their conclusions.
Men with a family history have higher rates of prostate cancer and African-American men present with more aggressive disease and in more advanced stages of the disease. In addition, they are twice as likely to die from this cancer than their Caucasian counterparts.
Murphy says it is more important to consider each case on an individual basis and to remember that diagnosis doesn't always need to lead to treatment.
