Panel Rejects PSA for Cancer Screening

PSA blood tests to screen for prostate cancer do more harm than good, an influential panel of experts says. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released the report. This group advises the government and doctors on preventive care. In the past, the task force had said there was not enough evidence to advise men to get PSA tests or not. The new statement specifically advises against the tests for routine cancer screening. A high PSA level sometimes indicates that a man has prostate cancer. But other things can cause a high level. Men need to get a biopsy — a type of surgery — to find out the cause. Task force members looked at all previous research on the subject. One study estimated that 2 out of 5 cancers found after a PSA test were too slow-growing to ever cause harm. The task force concluded that PSA testing does not reduce death rates. And it found that testing causes harm.