PSA test results: It isn t how fast they go up

Even as The Lancet — purveyor not so long ago of fraudulent claims that autism and vaccines were linked — was promoting more junk science, some important real science was turning up on this side of the Atlantic in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

A study of 5,519 men conducted by Dr. Andrew Vickers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York showed that rising levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) were not an indicator of an increased risk of prostate cancer. Dr. Vickers’ team found that only high absolute levels of PSA were a marker of increased cancer risk.

This contradicts the widespread assumptions of most doctors treating older men, those typically at greater risk for the disease. ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says, “This is important and surprising. Guidelines on whom to give biopsies will have to change accordingly.”