The extra blood volume produced in the obese may so dilute levels of a telltale protein produced by prostates that the popular PSA test may be significantly less effective for diagnosing prostate cancer in men carrying extra pounds, a new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests.
21st November 2007 | 0 Comments
Two tiny genetic variations may provide the best clues yet for finding more precise ways to estimate prostate cancer risk and improve screening and early detection for men of African descent, report researchers from the University of Chicago and the Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ, in the December 2007 issue of Genome Research, published early online.
3rd November 2007 | 0 Comments
It remains unclear whether PSA screening for prostate cancer reduces prostate cancer deaths, according to a study by the Veterans Affairs medical Center and Dartmouth researchers. While PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests have become widely used to screen for prostate cancer, a biopsy is what actually determines the presence of prostate cancer.
Nearly a third of prostate biopsies resulted in a cancer diagnosis among a population of older men on Medicare, the investigators reported. Men whose first biopsy did not find cancer often had repeat biopsies later, which increased the chance of a cancer diagnosis in the future.
The researchers estimated the proportion of prostate biopsies that result in a cancer diagnosis and the likelihood of finding cancer with subsequent biopsies after the first one was negative. They analyzed the outcomes of 10,429 biopsies performed from 1993 to 2001 in 8,273 men aged 65 and older.
About one third of prostate biopsies detected cancer, and the proportion of biopsies that found cancer increased as men got older. Among men whose first biopsy did not show cancer, about one third of them had another biopsy within five years. Nearly half the men who had a second biopsy were diagnosed with cancer, and the chance of diagnosis increased with each subsequent biopsy.
“Because the goal of screening is to reduce deaths from the disease and not simply to find more cancer, the utility of [repeated biopsies warrant] careful reassessment,” the authors wrote.
The study was published in the September 19, 2007 Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, VT, and professor of medicine and of community and family medicine at Dartmouth Medical School.
Source: Dartmouth Medical School
28th October 2007 | 0 Comments