Subsequent to issuance of the USPSTF’s final “D” recommendation on the use of the PSA test as a tool to screen healthy males for prostate cancer, the Department of Health and Human Services has already clearly stated that Medicare will continue to cover costs associated with the use of the PSA test as a method to assess risk for prostate cancer. However, appropriate education of men of the risks and benefits of PSA testing is now even more critical.
Some time ago, Prostate Cancer International and Us TOO International collaborated on a basic informational piece designed to help men determine whether they, as individuals, should consider having PSA tests (in association with digital rectal exams or DREs). The full text of this educational information is provided here. Any individual or organization is welcome to use this material and distribute it to men considering whether they should or should not have tests to assess their risk for prostate cancer.
Similarly, Dr. Gerry Chodak has now offered an updated “consent form” that could be given in advance to men considering or potentially considering whether being tested for risk of prostate cancer is appropriate for them as an individual. The data used in this consent form are based on the data presented by the USPSTF, and so some readers may not be entirely comfortable with those data, but the idea behind this consent form is very certainly a reasonable one because it is primarily designed to expand the knowledge of the candidate for testing before he starts down what we all acknowledge to be a potentially “slippery slope” for an otherwise uninformed patient. Dr. Chodak also discusses his thinking behind this consent form on one of his Medscape video blogs.
In thinking about all of these issues, it is important to appreciate the critical difference between the ideas behind “screening” (of all men of a certain age on a specific and regular basis) and “testing” (of specific individuals who wish to be so tested). The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink and Prostate Cancer International have long believed that there are few (if any) data to justify the annual, mass, population-based screening of all men (over 50 or any other age) for risk of prostate cancer. On the other hand, we also believe that there are strong reasons for men to establish a baseline PSA in their late 30s or early 40s and then, depending on their known risk factors, to discuss the appropriate future frequency and value of PSA tests and DREs for them, as individuals, with their doctors, with a full appreciation of the facts associated with actual diagnosis and treatment of localized prostate cancer.
We are in complete and utter agreement with the USPSTF on one fact and one fact only. Until we have better tests to assess the risk for and diagnose clinically significant (as opposed to indolent) prostate cancer, we are never going to be able to completely resolve the issue of who should or should not actually receive immediate treatment for localized disease. Until we have such tests, active surveillance is a form of management that is highly appropriate as a first-line strategy for somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of all men newly diagnosed with localized prostate cancer, most especially among the subset of men with a limited life expectancy (based on their age at diagnosis and other factors that are likely to impact their overall mortality).
Filed under: Diagnosis, Risk Tagged: | consent, Diagnosis, education, PSA, risk, test
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I guess I understand the USPSTF’s recommendation from a “macro” perspective. Currently, a lot of people seem to be getting unnecessary treatment. However, I am someone who 4 years ago was diagnosed at the age of 47 with Gleason 3 + 4 prostate cancer. I had surgery which so far appears to have been successful (fingers crossed!). I guess time will tell if I truly benefitted from the treatment.
Under the “new world order”, though, I know me and I would have preferred to avoid “looking under the hood” for anything that could be wrong and I would have used this “recommendation” to not take the test! I wonder where I would end up 10-12 years from now if I had not had intervention.
I know there are countless younger men out there that will avoid this test and have a false sense of comfort because this organization has made this recommendation. Hopefully these new drugs to treat advanced prostate cancer work, because a lot of people are gonna need them!
The USPSTF asks patients to have a considered discussion with their general practitioner prior to psa screening (not testing).
I would love to hear the USPSTF ask the patients to be skeptical of the treatment advice they receive from urologists post-biopsy. I most recently refer to the item here that Mike Scott posted regarding research from MSKCC that prostate cancer surgery increased 100% during the past few years.
What underpins all of this is how ineffective RRP and other prostate cancer treatments are at changing the course of the disease. Even in the Scandinavian RRP vs watchful waiting trial, where 80% of the subjects had their cancers detected by DRE, the number to treat to avert one cancer death was 14. That’s a hell of a lot better than the NTT of 48 in the trial cited by the USPSTF, where the cancers were all detected by PSA screening, but neither is by any means a testimonial to the effectiveness of RRP. If RRP actually cured cancer as effectively as it causes incontinence and impotence we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Paul:
There is a converse way to look at your point, which is to consider just how unnecessary it is to treat a very large percentage of prostate cancers because they are simply not going to be clinically significant within the lifespan of the patient. In other words, it is not about whether the treatment is effective (which it may well be) at eliminating the cancer; it is about whether there was any point to even trying to eliminate the cancer in the first place. We have long known that by the time prostate cancer is symptomatic and evident on DRE, the risk that it has already micrometastasized is significant, implying that the cancer is already potentially incurable.
I am encouraged that HHS will support Medicare reimbursement for PSA testing. Following my PSA resulted in my prostate cancer (Gleason 8 and 9) being discovered at age 77. If I had followed the USPSTF recommendations, I’d be either dead or managing my bone metastases now. I am astounded that no noise was made in response to the recommendation that PSA testing be used only in patients “with symptoms strongly suggestive of prostate cancer”. Wow, what double-talk — there ARE no such symptoms, until the disease is advanced.