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.

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.

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in serum serve as a biomarker for prostate tissue abnormality, enabling detection of early-stage prostate cancer in asymptomatic individuals when anatomical obstruction has not yet occurred.

Doctors should bring up PSA testing early with men who are more likely to get prostate cancer—like Black men or those with a family history—instead of waiting for the patient to ask.

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.

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.