What the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Missed in Its Prostate Cancer Screening Recommendation
Cet article présente la mise à jour des recommandations d'un groupe d'experts américains (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force) en matière de dépistage du cancer de la prostate
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a panel that does not include urologists or cancer specialists, has just recommended against prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based screening for prostate cancer, stating that “screening may benefit a small number of men but will result in harm to many others” (1). Recognizing that prostate cancer remains the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in men, we, an ad hoc group that includes nationally recognized experts in the surgical and radiological treatment of prostate cancer, oncologists, preventive medicine specialists, and primary care physicians, believe that the USPSTF has underestimated the benefits and overestimated the harms of prostate cancer screening. Therefore, we disagree with the USPSTF's recommendation.
The USPTSF bases its recommendation, in large part, on the 2 largest published randomized clinical trials (2). The U.S. PLCO (Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian) Cancer Screening Trial randomly assigned 76 685 men ages 55 to 74 years to receive either annual screening for 6 years or “usual care” (3). By 2009, 57% of the men had been followed for at least 13 years. The cumulative incidence rate for prostate cancer was slightly higher in the screened group, and prostate cancer mortality did not differ significantly between groups (3). The ERSPC (European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer) randomly assigned 162 243 men aged 55 to 69 years to either PSA screening once every 4 years or to an unscreened control group (4). After a median of 11 years of follow-up, the cumulative incidence of prostate cancer was 8.2% in the screened group and 4.8% in the control group. Prostate cancer death was reduced by 21% in the screened compared with the control group and 29% after adjustment for noncompliance (5). The Task Force concluded that this decrease in prostate cancer–specific mortality amounted to few lives saved and did not outweigh …
Annals of Internal Medicine , commentaire en libre accès, 2012