Negative or Positive, with a PSA Test Prostate Cancer is never Certain or Uncertain
The prostate specific antigen test, is something lots of men in this country have grown a ruinously familiar with over the 15 years has been with us. This is a popular test that measures the likelihood of prostate cancer in a person, by testing the levels in the body of a certain enzyme that the prostate gland produces. But the PSA test prostate cancer health tool has turned out to be a complete health policy catastrophe for the United States. How did this happen?
This country is spending about $3 billion on the PSA test each year - and most of the bill comes from Medicare. The amount of exposure prostate cancer gets, you think that it was quite an epidemic. Actually, only two out of ten people actually stand any risk of getting diagnosed with it; and once they do, only about three in hundred (out of the two in a hundred) actually dies because of it. And all the others, the prostate cancer goes about its business so slowly, the victims just carry on with their lives unharmed, and die naturally of old age long before the cancer ever has a chance of threatening them.
To begin with, if you test positive on the PSA test prostate cancer isn't proven by any stretch of the imagination. The test is no more accurate than any game of chance. 50% of the time, it is wrong. And more importantly, it can't tell you anything about whether it is a fast growing prostate cancer you have, or safe slow one.
A PSA test prostate cancer finding is a real joke; anything you take - over-the-counter fever medicine, or a simple age-related swelling of the prostate gland, can send your enzyme levels up, and it can test you positive for cancer - for no reason. And if you do have low levels, that is no guarantee of anything either. You could have low levels of the enzyme and still have the cancer. It's just that the FDA thought that this test, that has about a 4% accuracy rate, was a whole lot better than the alternative - the digital rectal exam. I sure hope you don't get fooled by the "digital" in there. It isn't "digital" as in computers.
Things could not be worse for the PSA test. The medical community is turning against it, and they're finding that it really hasn't prevented any deaths at all so far. So why do they still use it? Probably because the drug companies find it profitable to sell it. How the medical community has fallen.