Prostate Cancer Deaths May Rise After An Unfavorable Vote By U.S. Panel

Reports surfaced Thursday of an influential medical group of doctors and advisers vote against routine screenings of prostate cancer for healthy men.

Although, the vote has drawn criticism from health groups worried that the move will increase deaths in men at risk of the cancer.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel that recommends whether doctors should scale back on mammograms for women or not, recommended that doctors not use the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

Today's decision of no confidence on the PSA test by the U.S. government condemns tens of thousands of men to die this year and every year going forward if families are to believe the out-of-date evidence presented by the USPSTF, Skip Lockwood, chief executive of ZERO, a group devoted to ending prostate cancer, told reporters.

Current recommendations say there is insufficient evidence to support the use of the test.

A decision on how best to test and treat for prostate cancer must be made between a man and his doctor. This decision is coming from a panel that doesn't even include a urologist or medical oncologist, Lockwood said.

The PSA test measures levels of a protein produced by the prostate gland to gauge a man's risk of prostate cancer, but the test has a high rate of false positives.

Dr. Scott Eggener, an expert in prostate cancer at the University of Chicago, said the new recommendations, if adopted, would discourage men from getting prostate cancer screening.

Eggener said the move is a classic example of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water,' adding that, a more sensible approach is to use all of our currently available tools to intelligently determine which patients are most likely to benefit from screening and treatment.