Researchers find favorable tradeoffs of PSA screening for prostate cancer

University Hospitals’ Jonathan Shoag, MD, and a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medical Center, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and others, set out to assess the tradeoffs of PSA screening using long-term epidemiologic data. “No matter the assumptions,” Shoag said, “the data showed lower numbers than prior estimates, many in the low single digits, for the number needed to treat to prevent a prostate-cancer death. This result was observed in all men, and especially for Black men.” The researchers presented their findings in a late-breaking abstract at the American Urological Association’s annual meeting this month and the study was published May 15 in The New England Journal of Medicine Evidence.