Does Prostate Screening Improve Patient Outcomes?

ByPrimary Researcher

Table of Contents: Select a Link to be Taken to That Section

Executive Summary

  • Prostate screening is widely considered to be something that all men should do.
  • What are the outcomes of prostate cancer screening?

Introduction

Cancer screening is considered a perfect way to protect one’s health. Let’s see what the effectiveness of cancer screen is in terms of outcomes.

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Promoting Prostate Cancer Screening

This graphic designed to get people to get screened contains false and misleading information. 

  1. There is no evidence that early detection saves lives. Prostate cancer, in most cases, need not be treated, so being screened will lead to worse outcomes than not being screened if the result of being screened is the standard accepted cancer treatment.
  2. Prostate cancer may be the most common non-skin cancer, but that does not mean that prostate cancer has a high mortality. Many men live with inactive prostate cancer tumors for decades without treatment—the overall graphic attempts to commingle commonality with lethality.
  3. The statement that there is a 90% survival rate from prostate cancer when caught early is false. Again, men are better off, in nearly all cases, not accepting treatment for prostate cancer. There is no evidence that treatment increases survival or extends life.

Support for what I have stated is found in the following quotation from the article Do Doctors Understand Test Results?

Take prostate cancer. In the US, many men choose to be screened for prostate-specific antigens (PSA) which can be an indicator of the disease. In the UK, it’s more common for men to get checked only after they start experiencing problems.