Originally published August 2 2005
PSA changes in prostate cancer may be key to risk
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new study reveals how to tell who is at higher risk for prostate cancer. The crucial difference is how fast blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) go up, alerting doctors to who is at a higher risk of developing the disease.
The answer to the biggest question in prostate cancer therapy -- which cancers need aggressive treatment and which are best left to "watchful waiting" -- may lie in the results of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, two studies indicate.
"A single reading is like looking at one snapshot of a race," said Freedland, a clinical instructor in urology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
The rate at which PSA levels doubled over time was a critical factor for predicting death in a group of 379 men who underwent surgery for prostate cancer, concludes a report by Freedland's group published in the July 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"These preliminary findings may serve as useful guides to patients and their physicians to identify patients at high risk for prostate cancer-specific mortality ...[and] to enroll them in early aggressive treatment trials," they wrote.
A second paper in the same journal found similar results for a much more common scenario -- men treated with radiation after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The crucial factor predicting death in the 358 men in that trial was a two-point rise in PSA readings.
A PSA test should be part of that exam, and an increase of two points from the original level, no matter how high or low, indicates that a biopsy should be done to detect cancer, he said.
Once cancer is detected, aggressive treatment may be advisable for those men who experienced a two-point PSA increase before diagnosis, he said.
"Step two is how to treat them, and we're not there yet."
But for men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer, "the standard of care is going to be different because of PSA reading," D'Amico said.
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