Huffington Post: To Screen or Not to Screen for Prostate Cancer?

In 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a recommendation that doctors in the United States should stop all routine prostate specific antigen (PSA)-based screenings for prostate cancer. Some applauded the new guidelines and others strongly criticized them. The dispute left many men and their families wondering about the best approach.

“There is little question that many thousands of men owe their lives to PSA testing.”

Dr. Ornish on Prostate Cancer Screening

In this post, Dr. Ornish, the Huffington Post’s Medical Editor,  joins a group of doctors to explain the new recommendation. The group includes Matthew R. Cooperberg, Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco and Peter R. Carroll, a Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology at the University of California, San Francisco. They write that “elements of the truth exist on both sides” and go on to explain:

Since the advent of PSA screening in the U.S., national prostate cancer mortality rates have fallen steadily and are now about 40 percent lower than they were 15 years ago. The proportion of this decline attributable to screening remains controversial, but there is little question that many thousands of men owe their lives to PSA testing.

Read the full article here.