I was reading an article about a blood test for prostate cancer called PSA, which is an antigen put out by the prostate. If the test reveals high levels of a 4 or above it’s an indication of increased risk of prostate cancer. The article went on to explain that in obese men they think the extra blood volume dilutes the PSA so it shows up at lower levels and cancers could be missed.
What caught my eye was this paragraph,
“The current recommendation is for men aged 50 and older to be offered an annual PSA test, with explanations of its possible risks and benefits. A federal preventive medicine committee this week said that PSA screening should not be done for men aged 75 and older because the risks outweigh the benefits.” This quote is from the Washington Post.
This information seemed a little out of place with the rest of the content, and seemed strange to me, so I looked up what the PSA test entailed. As far as my research told me it’s just a simple blood test, with the blood being taken out of the arm and is then sent to the lab for analysis. So what possible risks are they talking about in comparison to the benefits of finding and treating prostate cancer?
This sounds a lot like the advice we got a couple weeks ago about not doing breast self exams anymore because we might find a lump and have to have a biopsy. If the biopsy results come back benign then the biopsy was a waste of money for whatever insurance carrier the patient has. The risk I believe they are referring to is the risk that further testing may be needed and insurance companies don’t want to pay for them. I further will suggest that the insurance companies don’t even care if the results of the PSA or further tests show it is cancer, I believe they figure that men over 75 may face a poor prognosis if cancer is found whether it’s treated or not. In plain English, if a man is over 75, he’s lived his life and should get ready to die and not waste our money or time and resources.
That’s just my take, what do you think?