Getting tested for prostate cancer with the PSA test finds a lot of slow-growing cancers that would never hurt you—way more than in men who don’t get tested.

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Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

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Community contributions welcome

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Towards personalized prostate cancer screening

Narrative Review

2020 Mar

This study says that PSA tests find lots of slow-growing prostate cancers that would never hurt you — and that happens more often when men get screened, which is exactly what the claim says.

Contradicting (0)

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No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Towards personalized prostate cancer screening

Score: 1

DOI: 10.1515/almed-2019-0027

Similar Assertions

Testing men for prostate cancer with PSA blood tests might save a few lives, but it often finds cancers that would never cause harm, leading to unnecessary treatments with side effects.

1

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84%

We need better ways to find the dangerous prostate cancers early, avoid treating harmless ones, and figure out who really needs testing based on their personal risk.

1

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Doctors don’t fully agree on the best way to treat early-stage prostate cancer, so finding it early doesn’t always mean better outcomes — it might just lead to more treatments that don’t help.

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Men who wait until they have trouble peeing to get checked for prostate cancer are much more likely to find out their cancer is already spread, compared to men who get tested even if they feel fine.

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1

75%

The PSA blood test isn't very good at telling the difference between harmless prostate changes and real cancer, so many men get scared and undergo painful tests they don't need.

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73%