MSSNY Protests USPSTF's Prostate Cancer Screening Recommendations

WESTBURY, NY (05/30/2012)(readMedia)-- The Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) joins the American Urological Association (AUA), the Large Urology Group Practice Association (LUGPA) and the American Association of Clinical Urologists (AACU) in condemning the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) decision to assign a "D" rating to PSA based screening for prostate cancer as ill-advised and irresponsible. The result will be to discourage men from undergoing screening for this potentially fatal and morbid illness.

"One in six men in the United States risks getting prostate cancer during his lifetime. Prostate cancer has always been widespread; however, before 1987, physicians did not screen for it," said Michael M. Ziegelbaum, MD, Vice President of Nassau County Medical Society and a board-certified urologist with Advanced Urology Centers of New York. He added, "At that time 25 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer had disease that had spread to other parts of the body, which was inevitably fatal. Today, with early detection, that number has been drastically reduced to less than 5 percent. Overall, the death rate from prostate cancer has decreased by 44 percent in the PSA screening era."

"We are appalled at the USPSTF's recommendation that healthy men should no longer receive prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests as part of routine cancer screening," said Deepak A. Kapoor, MD, President of LUGPA and Chairman and CEO of Integrated Medical Professionals, PLLC. Dr. Kapoor added, "This is a potential public health catastrophe as in five to seven years as those patients we fail to detect early will present with advanced diseases; as a result of this inappropriate recommendation, thousands of men will needlessly die."

The Task Force did not include any urologists or oncologists on its panel and the main study cited – the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial – was seriously flawed. Meanwhile findings of the largest prostate cancer screening trial, European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC), which found as much as a 31 percent decrease in cancer-specific mortality in screened vs. non-screened men was discounted by the panel.

The one size fits all downgrade of prostate cancer screening to a "D" recommendation at this time would also deny screening to those at the greatest risk for prostate cancer – African-Americans and those with a family history of prostate cancer. These patients urgently need to be educated about their risks of developing cancer, and the role that screening could play in early diagnosis and treatment.

MSSNY calls on our state legislators to reject this recommendation and to support PSA screening for well-informed men who wish to pursue early diagnosis for a disease that is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. The USPSTF's recommendations risk undoing 20 years of progress in patient education and puts the lives of tens of thousands of men at risk. All concerned citizens are encouraged to contact their State and Federal legislators to demand that access to this life-saving testing is not restricted as a result of these misguided recommendations.

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