Chat transcript: Making sense of prostate cancer screening
Last month, an influential federal panel rejected use of the PSA test as a screen for prostate cancer. A family physician will help sort through the confusion.
Chat transcript: Making sense of prostate cancer screening
Editor's Note: Scroll down to see the chat.
Last month, in a controversial move, an influential federal panel rejected use of the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test as a screen for prostate cancer.
"At best, PSA screening may help only 1 man in 1,000 avoid death from prostate cancer," the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said. "Most prostate cancers found by PSA screening are slow growing, not life threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime."
Urologists and advocacy groups immediately decried the advice - as they did when a draft version was released last October - and worried that insurers may stop paying for PSA testing.
What should men do as they approach the age for such screening?
Mona Sarfaty, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of the Health Policy and the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, was online on June 14 at 1 p.m. to help readers sort through the confusion.
Sarfaty's current research focuses on policy initiatives in cancer prevention and control, and outcomes improvement in primary care. She is a certified family physician.
You can read the transcript from the chat below.
- Abington Memorial Hospital
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- American Medical Association
- Aria Health
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Consumer Medication Safety site from ISMP
- Cooper University Hospital
- Crozer-Keystone Health System
- ECRI Institute
- Inquirer Health & Science
- Institute for Safe Medication Practices
- Jefferson Health System
- Kaiser Health News
- Kennedy Health System
- Lourdes Health System
- Medical Society of New Jersey
- Mercy Health System
- New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services
- New Jersey Hospital Association
- NPR.org Shots
- NYTimes.com: Well
- Penn Medicine
- Pennsylvania Department of Health
- Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council
- Pennsylvania Medical Society
- Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority
- St. Mary Medical Center
- Temple University Health System
- Tenet Healthcare
- The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty
- The Chester County Hospital
- The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- Virtua
- WSJ.com Health
