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Developer Of Prostate Cancer Test Says It’s Unreliable

The October 2004 issue of the Journal of Urology reports that the inventor of a common prostate cancer test known as the PSA test now says that the test is unreliable. He also stated that the test is being overused, leading to unnecessary treatment of men who have simple prostate enlargement rather than cancer.

In 1987 Dr. Thomas Stamey of Stanford University was the first to report that certain antigens called PSAs could be used to determine the presence of prostate cancer.

“What we didn’t know in the early years is that benign growth of the prostate is the most common cause of [an increase in a] PSA level,” Stamey says.

In the study, tissue from 1317 prostates removed at Stanford since 1983 was examined. In the first 5-year period, 91% of the cancers were obvious on digital rectal examination (DRE) and the average volume (size) of the tumor was 5.33cc. In the last 5-year period between 1999 and 2003 the numbers had dropped to 17% and 2.44cc.

The average distance that the tumor had penetrated the wall of the prostate also dropped, from 1.54 in the first period to 0.22 in the last one.

From these figures, the authors of the study concluded that prostate cancer is being over-treated since death from prostate cancer is very uncommon in elderly men.

The author concludes that extensive use of the PSA test is not warranted. Uncomfortably, they recommend “careful palpation of the prostate” by DRE since it remains the best way to truly find tumors.

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