Can Pelvic Organ Prolapse Be Prevented?
Did you know that up to half of women will experience pelvic organ prolapse during their lifetimes? Here’s a look at pelvic organ prolapse and what you can do to prevent or slow the condition.
When Should I Start PSA Testing?
When you hear that 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, you want to know how concerned you should be and whether there are some good screening tools that can act as an early warning sign.
The answers to these questions are complex, so we turn to the skilled team of men’s health specialists at Arizona Urology. As experts in prostate cancer, here’s what we want you to know about screening for prostate cancer using PSA testing.
What PSA testing tells us
A great place to start is to describe exactly what the PSA test can tell us (and what it can’t). A PSA test is a simple blood test that measures the level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in your bloodstream.
PSA is a protein that your prostate gland produces — both healthy cells and malignant ones. So, we always find PSA in your blood, but we’re on the lookout for elevated levels, which can point to an issue.
Diving deeper, elevated PSA levels don’t necessarily imply cancer. You can have elevated PSA levels due to benign prostatic hyperplasia or prostatitis, which are far different from prostate cancer.
So, as you can see, the PSA test isn’t a solid screening practice for prostate cancer, but it can be a useful tool under the right circumstances.
PSA testing is just a first step
We also want to take a moment to underscore that PSA testing is just an initial indicator that there might be a problem. In other words, PSA testing is far from conclusive, and if you have elevated PSA levels that aren’t due to other conditions, this just means we continue our investigation with further testing and a biopsy.
Who should test PSA levels?
The guidelines from the American Cancer Society and the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) both emphasize that PSA testing should be done on a case-by-case basis and determined after a discussion with a urology/men’s health specialist.
We recommend PSA testing for men who are more at risk for prostate cancer, such as those:
- With a personal history of prostate cancer
- Who have an immediate family member (father or brother) who has prostate cancer
- Who are black are more at risk for prostate cancer
- Who have certain genetic mutations, such as the BRCA2
In these cases, we discuss PSA testing, particularly between ages 45 and 55.
Men who shouldn’t use PSA testing
Experts agree that certain groups of men should not undergo PSA testing. Prostate cancer is generally a slow-growing cancer, so we don’t recommend PSA testing after the age of 70. By the same token, if your life expectancy is shorter than 10 years, we don’t recommend PSA screening.
The best way to find out when, and if, you should start screening for prostate cancer through PSA testing is to discuss it with one of our prostate specialists.
To get that ball rolling, we invite you to contact us at one of our offices in Phoenix, Goodyear, Gilbert, and Glendale, Arizona, today to schedule an appointment.
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