Survival Rates for Prostate Cancer ‘far Better in US’
April 17th, 2008 Posted in prostate cancerA new research at the University of Bristol, compared prostate cancer death-rates in the UK and US between 1975 and 2004.
The study has shown that prostate cancer death-rates have fallen almost four times faster in the US than in the UK since the early 1990s.
Researchers suggest the reason could be due to different approaches to screening and treatment in the two countries, but the jury is still out on whether blood tests, which are carried out far more routinely in the US, contributed to the better record across the Atlantic.
Prostate cancer screening uses the PSA test, which looks for raised levels of a protein called prostate-specific antigen.
PSA leaks out of the prostate gland into the blood when cancer is present, but can also appear for other reasons.
So far, there has been no robust evidence to indicate that carrying out PSA tests on large numbers of men has an impact on prostate cancer mortality
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