PHOENIX — Middle-aged men should get regular prostate cancer screening, the American Cancer Society said Thursday in a major change to its guidelines, CBS News reported.
Men at average risk should get a prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, blood test every two years between ages 50 and 69, the society now advises.
Men at high risk, including Black men and those with a strong family history of the disease, should start at 45 and get tested every year, according to the guidelines. The society defines a strong family history as a father, brother or son diagnosed before 65, or several close relatives diagnosed at any age.
Since 2010, the society had recommended that average-risk men talk with their doctors about whether to be tested. Widespread PSA testing had been blamed for overtreatment of slow-growing tumors, CBS News reported.
The society said the change reflects better ways to reduce harms, such as repeating a high PSA test, adding MRI scans before a biopsy and monitoring low-risk tumors rather than treating them aggressively.
“This has taken ambiguity out of it. They are basically saying, ‘Do it,'” said Dr. Ash Tewari, who leads urology at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine and was not involved in the guideline.
The society still stresses a doctor-patient conversation about the pros and cons, and screening is not recommended for men not expected to live another 10 years.
Sources: CBS News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Bondarev.gal / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
