title: Response to the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force decision on prostate cancer screening.
abstract: The population-level data demonstrate that the inception of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening has lowered mortality for prostate cancer over the past 2 decades. However, more recent evidence from randomized trials has presented conflicting results regarding the benefit of PSA screening for prostate cancer mortality. Using available data, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recently recommended against PSA screening for prostate cancer. However, prostate cancer continues to kill over 30,000 men annually, and as such, completely abandoning screening for this disease is a disservice to many patients. Rather, the emphasis should be on utilizing evidence-based medicine to reduce overdiagnosis and overtreatment through less frequent screening for low-risk individuals or those unlikely to benefit from screening, halting further screening when appropriate, and utilizing observational strategies in patients unlikely to suffer clinically significant effects of prostate cancer over their anticipated life expectancy.
authors.affiliation: Center for Urologic Oncology, Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Desk Q10-1, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
authors.forename: Iryna
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Makovey
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Stephenson
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Haywood
mesh_terms: D026683:Advisory Committees; D003951:Diagnostic Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007610:Kallikreins / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D017430:Prostate-Specific Antigen / Q000097:blood; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014481:United States
chemical_list: C549870:KLK3 protein, human; D007610:Kallikreins; D017430:Prostate-Specific Antigen