From the Guidelines
Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) is a protein produced by the prostate gland, and its level in the blood can be used as a screening test for prostate cancer, although it is not specific to cancer and can be elevated in other prostate conditions 1. The PSA test can detect most prostate cancers earlier than a digital rectal exam (DRE) when no symptoms are present, and men who have regular PSA tests have a higher chance of finding out they have prostate cancer, whereas those who do not have regular PSA tests have a lower chance but a higher probability of having more advanced cancer when ultimately diagnosed 1. Some key points to consider about PSA include:
- African-American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer have a higher risk for developing prostate cancer 1
- Many prostate cancers grow very slowly, and many men with prostate cancer may die of something else before their prostate cancer causes any symptoms 1
- Doctors disagree about what level of PSA is high enough to perform further testing, such as a prostate biopsy, to look for prostate cancer, with some recommending a biopsy for men with PSA levels greater than 4, and others recommending a biopsy for men with levels greater than 2.5 1
- A prostate biopsy is usually well tolerated and infrequently causes serious problems, and it is the biopsy, not the PSA test, that tells whether a man has prostate cancer 1
- PSA tests can be abnormal even when a man does not have prostate cancer (false-positive) or normal even when a man does have prostate cancer (false-negative) 1
From the Research
Definition of Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA)
Related Information
- The provided studies discuss various topics such as critical incident reporting systems 2, analgesic efficacy of acetaminophen and ibuprofen 3, 4, 5, 6, but do not mention Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA)