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"PSA Founder states that PSA does
not diagnose Prostate Cancer."
Dr Richard Ablin of the University of Arizona, the founder of
the PSA test says that it does not diagnose Prostate cancer.
It is a marker for inflammation, NOT cancer.
PSA testing is under fire again, with the doctor who discovered
it condemning it as “a public health disaster”.
“PSA testing can’t detect prostate cancer,” he wrote, saying
elevations in PSA levels could be caused by infections,
over-the-counter drugs such as ibuprofen and benign swelling of the
prostate.
“More important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of
prostate cancer – the one that will kill you and the one that
won’t,” he wrote.
He said the test still had a place, but only for the routine
testing of men with a family history of prostate cancer, and for
monitoring men who had already been treated for the disease.
Yet at present, some 30 million American men undergo PSA testing
each year. While they had a 16% chance of being diagnosed with
prostate cancer, they only had a 3% chance of dying from it because
most cancers developed slowly over time, he said.
His comments follow two major studies last year which failed to
prove PSA testing saved lives. One study found 1410 men would need
to be screened and 48 additional cases of prostate cancer would
need to be treated to prevent one death from prostate cancer.
The other study found no difference in mortality rates between
men who were screened with PSA and digital rectal examination, and
controls over 7-10 years of follow-up.
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