Drugs may cause errors in prostate screening tests
August 8th, 2010 Posted in prostate cancer diagnosisAuthors of a new study say some of the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S. may skew results on prostate screening tests, causing errors in diagnosis.
Researchers say non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like cholesterol-lowering statins, painkillers, and some diuretics can actually lower a person’s prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, levels. Much more, the longer patients were on the medications, the more their PSA levels dropped.
The study is published in the Online Journal of Clinical Oncology.