Tuesday 28 April 2009

Norfolk & Waveney Prostate Cancer Support Group

With this weeks AUA updated best practice regarding PSA testing I think it's worth highlighting this support group as their recent Newsletter shows the strong contrast between the UK and the USA.


"The results of the the mass screening event in Norwich on March 5th raise two matters of concern.

One is that the 31 results found to be abnormal was 40 per cent higher than the average found at other similar sessions elsewhere in the country.

The second is that of the 219 men 68 told us they had been refused a test by their GP.

One of them was a man whose father and grandfather had died from prostate cancer and his younger brother had been diagnosed with it.
Yet, still his GP refused a PSA test -despite reputable medical studies showing that a man with a family history of prostate or breast, cancer is 2.5 to 3.5 times more likely to contract prostate cancer than a man with no family history of these cancers.

It beggars belief that there are still a few GPs who are so anti PSA-testing that they are,unwittingly, exposing their patients to serious, potentially life-threatening, risks.
They are just not following Health Department guidelines, which state that any man over 50 who requests one should be given a free PSA test.
This does not preclude any GP from against a test, but I contend that no GP has the right to refuse one.
I believe there is an urgent need for the local PCT to remind all GPs of this."
Newsletter March 2009 - Issue 26

Norfolk and Waveney Prostate Cancer Support Group Website


In my opinion and what I hope we will see is the adoption of or part of this weeks AUA PSA Best Practice Policy in the UK.


The report is an update of the previous AUA PSA Best Practice Policy 2000.

There are 2 notable differences in the current policy.

First, the age for obtaining a baseline PSA has been lowered to 40 years.

Secondly, the current policy no longer recommends a single,threshold value of PSA which should prompt prostate biopsy.


Rather, the decision to proceed to prostate biopsy should be based primarily on PSA and DRE results, but should take into account multiple factors including free and total PSA, patient age, PSA velocity, PSA density, family
history, ethnicity, prior biopsy history and comorbidities. In addition, although recently published trials show different results with regard to the impact of prostate cancer screening on mortality, both suggest that prostate cancer screening leads to overdetection and overtreatment of some patients.

Therefore, the AUA strongly supports that men be informed of the risks and
benefits of prostate cancer screening before biopsy and the option of active surveillance in lieu of immediate treatment for certain men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Prostate-Specific Antigen Best Practice Statement:2009 Update AUA-27th April


I think this man has played a major part in the new AUA guidelines-H.Ballentine Carter,MD Professor of Urology,Oncology Johns Hopkins Medicine Director,Division of Adult Urology Brady Urological Institute.

I can't remember exactly when this audio interview took place but was spot on in my opinion and has been now justified again in my opinion:

In my view the best information on PSA testing and the future that I have seen to date!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the great post, just keep up the good work. these groups are really life savers.

    ReplyDelete