YourSpine.com - Chiropractic - Prostate Test May Miss Most Prostate Cancer

Prostate Test May Miss Most Prostate Cancer

The July 24 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports on a study that found a common prostate cancer test may miss up to 82 percent of the cancer it is supposed to detect.

The test, known as the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has long been considered to be an infallible test to identify prostate cancer.

Researcher Dr. Rinaa Punglia says “some past studies have shown PSA testing to be almost perfect, however clinicians suspect the test produces a significant number of false positives and false negatives.”

False positive results create problems by causing men without the disease to be treated unnecessarily. False negative results showing no cancer are generally not followed up with additional examination because doctors feel that the test is accurate enough on its own.

But this research shows the test to be far from accurate. In a review of 6,691 volunteers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Dr. Punglia and her team found that the men in the study under the age of 60 who had prostate cancer also had a negative PSA test 82% of the time.

Change Zip Code Close