Screening for prostate cancer

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The annual rise of 3% in the incidence rate of prostate carcinoma has dramatically increased the interest in a screening programme for its early diagnosis. In the European Community and in Germany, prostate cancer has advanced to the second leading cause of cancer death in men, after carcinoma of the lung. The Programme for Early Detection of Cancer, running in Germany since 1972, which exclusively considers the findings of rectal palpation, currently has a participation rate of 14% and a detection rate of only 0.1%. Therefore it must be considered ineffective. However, the diagnostic rate could be improved many times and more locally confined carcinomas could be found with minimal financial expenditure, if the qualification of the examiner were improved (for example, a 'driver's licence for the palpating finger'). The prostate-specific antigen determination, which is used so often these days, appears to be minimally useful as a first-line investigation in screening for prostate cancer because of its high costs and the lack of evidence that early diagnosis decreases the cancer-specific mortality.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: