A new study investigating the potential benefits of the PSA blood test – used to help detect prostate cancer – has suggested that screening men every two years may not be any more effective than screening every four years.
Now, a study by researchers at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has revealed that while screening every two years does detect more prostate cancers, the number of aggressive cancers found between scheduled tests remains unaffected.
The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests that shorter times between PSA tests may not be an effective way of preventing prostate cancer deaths. Experts analysed data from two medical centres – one in Sweden, where 4,202 men were screened every two years, and the other in the Netherlands, where 13,301 men were screened every four years.
They found that the difference in the number of interval cancers diagnosed between screening tests and the number of aggressive interval cancers at the two centres was not statistically significant, suggesting that the two-year screening programme did not reduce the number of interval cancers. Larger cancers were also identified with equal effectiveness regardless of whether men were tested every two or four years.
Martin Ledwick, Cancer Research UK’s cancer information nurse manager, commented: “When these trials are complete, we should have a much clearer idea of whether screening is helpful.”
