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Urologists 'Outraged' Over PSA Test Challenge
The nation's leading urology associations are fuming over a federal panel's report this week that discredits the widely used prostate-specific antigen screening test for prostate cancer.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said in a report that the PSA test is too inaccurate, creates needless anxiety for patients, and can lead to costly and potentially harmful follow-up procedures.
"The USPSTF concludes that there is moderate certainty that the benefits of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer do not outweigh the harm," the report stated.
Major urology associations knew in advance about the USPSTF recommendation and urologists launched a counterattack when the report was made public this week.
"It's an absurd recommendation. It is ill-researched and ill-conceived," Sanford J. Siegel, MD, a board member with the Large Urology Group Practice Association, told HealthLeaders Media. "This will only do damage to all the great work that has been done for prostate cancer awareness and to control the deaths from prostate cancer."
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Comments are moderated. Please be patient.
tyco brahe (5/24/2012 at 11:06 AM)
If this objective panel looked at the data and found that the test doesn't work as a screening tool for a population, why are urologists fighting it? How much money do urologists and the test manufacturers going to lose?
Susan Ward (5/24/2012 at 10:24 AM)
This is another ploy by the federal government to eliminate payments under Medicare. With this kind of reporting, the next step will be Medicare not paying for screening PSA tests. There is a similar movement against screening mammography. It is all part of a larger plan aimed at decreasing Medicare payments.
Jonathan Raven (5/24/2012 at 9:51 AM)
Gee, at least you could have had the guts to have used the headline "Urologists 'Pissed' Over PSA Test Challenge".