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Prostate Cancer Screening Isn't Always a Good Idea
It would seem that screening for any type of cancer improves your odds of catching it early, but that’s not always true. In the case of prostate cancer, the screening is known as PSA testing — a simple blood test that can detect a prostate-specific antigen. When there’s a lot of that particular protein present, it could point to cancer.
However, the PSA test isn’t perfect: it has a high false-positive rate (since PSA can indicate inflammation or enlargement as well as cancer), and it could prompt doctors to treat slow-growing tumors that aren’t life-threatening. Since screening can lead to unnecessary tests and invasive treatment, experts suggest that men at low-risk for prostate cancer don’t have a test each and every year.
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