Prostate Cancer Screening (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version

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Changes to This Summary (02/09/2018)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

Description of the Evidence

Updated statistics with estimated new cases and deaths for 2018 (cited American Cancer Society as reference 1).

Revised text to state that although the protocols differed considerably among countries, generally the men were randomly assigned to either a group that offered prostate-specific antigen screening at an average of once every 4 years or to a control group that did not receive screening.

Added text to state that randomization was 1:1 in all countries except Finland, in which it was 1:1.5.

Added text to state that important information that was not reported includes the contamination rate in the entire control group. Also added that there was some evidence that the treatment administered to the prostate cancer cases differed by stage and by randomly assigned group, with the screening group more often receiving radical prostatectomy than the control group; however, no analysis of the overall effect of the difference on the mortality outcome has been reported, and longer follow-up and further analysis will be needed to determine the final results of this trial.

Added Post hoc analysis of randomized screening trials as a new subsection.

Added The Quebec study as a new subsection.

Added Modeling the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer combined with the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial as a new subsection.

This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Screening and Prevention Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ® - NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.

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