prostate-report.org

Review of prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment after the introduction of PSA screening: 1986-2005

Early detection and screening should identify cancers that will become clinically relevant. While early detection can be associated increases in incidence, raising the question of over-diagnosis, the number of individuals diagnosed with cancer would be unaffected by screening. Cancers that are found by over-diagnosis never progress to cause symptoms or death. In prostate cancer, randomized screening trials show an excess incidence in the screened group compared to control subjects. Excess incidence is considered a proxy for over-diagnosis as some of the excess may reflect the lead time of diagnosis.

A report published in the online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, analyzed age-specific incidence trends during the past 20 years to quantify the impact of over-diagnosis.