Prostate cancer screening: where are we now?

Screening aims to identify prostate cancer at an early stage where curative treatment can reduce mortality. Given high false positive and false negative rates, however, the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in screening has long been controversial. Recent systematic reviews comprising large randomised-controlled trials (RCTs) with long-term follow-up have demonstrated just modest benefit regarding mortality reduction compared to standard care [1,2]. Screening is also associated with overdiagnosis of clinically-insignificant tumours that never would have been diagnosed otherwise. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.