More support for PSA testing as an early diagnostic tool

Researchers have discovered a "striking" decline in prostate-cancer mortality in the United States compared with the United Kingdom in 1994-2004. Noting that there was a ten-times difference in the uptake of PSA testing between the USA (57%) and the UK (6%) by 2001, they speculate that the more common use of the PSA test for screening in the United States might be related to this decline in mortality. (See a summary of the article "Prostate-cancer mortality in the USA and UK in 1975-2004" published in Lancet Oncology, May 2008.)

Closer to home, an excellent article by award-winning science writer Tom Keenan argues that Alberta should "pony up for prostate tests." Keenan, who is also a professor at the University of Calgary, surveys the continuing controversy over provincial funding for PSA screening and urges BC and Alberta, the two holdout provinces, to reconsider. (Read this article.)

As Keenan notes, Ontario is going to start paying for PSA tests to screen apparently healthy men for prostate cancer starting in 2009. Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon already cover the use of the PSA test as a screening tool. (See the CPCN article "Provincial Coverage of the PSA Test."