Innate Healer

The PSA blood test — the popular screening test for prostate cancer — saves few if any lives and exposes large numbers of men to risky and unnecessary treatment, two large and rigorous studies have found.

The findings raise new questions about the rapid and widespread adoption of the test, which measures a protein released by prostate cells. It was introduced in 1987 and quickly became a routine part of preventive health care. Experts debated its value, basing their views on data that often involved statistical modeling and inferences.

Now, with the new data, cancer experts said men should carefully consider the test’s risks and benefits before deciding to be screened.

The studies, said Dr. Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, are “some of the most important studies in the history of men’s health.”

For years, the cancer society has urged men to be informed before deciding to have a PSA test. “Now we actually have something to inform them with,” he said. “We’ve got numbers.”

Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth who studies cancer screening, also welcomed the new data. “We’ve been waiting years for this,” he said. “It’s a shame we didn’t have it 20 years ago.”

Read the full article:  New York Times online, March 19 2009

My comment:  less is more in disease testing and treatment.