Prostate Cancer Screening – The PSA Test and DRE Screening

The symptoms of prostate cancer usually involve difficulties associated with passing out urine and having ejaculations. Pains, blood, fatigue, etc are also some of the signs associated with or that can affect individuals who are experiencing the growth of cancer from their prostate glands.

Some of these symptoms are also associated with some other conditions that can affect the prostate. For instance, when the prostate gets enlarged, gets infected, or experience what is referred to as Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), these symptoms can still appear.

The question now is this, what test or screening is to be done to really diagnose cancer of the prostate cancer separately from other similar conditions? This article is going to throw some light on two popular screening procedures usually prescribed for men that are to be diagnosed of cancer of the prostate.  These are the PSA test and DRE screening.

• PSA Screening – this is a kind of blood test that tends to examine the amount to PSA in the blood. PSA stands for prostate Specific Antigen. It is an enzyme or protein substance usually secreted by the prostate gland. An elevated amount of PSA is usually found in the blood of men with prostate cancer.

The PSA test has not really been accepted as a standard screening procedure for cancer of the prostate. This is because of a lot of faulty positive results that may often occur. However, it can help to doctors to determine if the patient has elevated amount PSA in the blood.

• DRE Screening – DRE refers to Digital Rectal Exam. It is a screening procedure in which the doctor inserts a gloved and lubricated finger into the rectum to feel any lump of enlarged prostate. The need for this exam is based on the fact that prostate cancer can result in the enlargement of the prostate gland.

DRE still has some issues as it may ignore other symptoms and misdiagnose other conditions. However, it is still a good screening option applied to test for prostate cancer in men.

The combination of PSA and DRE can yield better result as screening procedures to detect early cancer of the prostate. However, others screening procedures like the carrying out of tissues biopsies can be used to provide a more authentic diagnosis.

Finally, PSA and DRE, despite not yielding the best of results as prostate cancer screening, are still very important aspect of prostate cancer diagnosis today.  Talk to your doctor about the screening tests for prostate cancer today.

The Importance Of The PSA Test In Prostate Cancer Screening

At one time in what looks like a distant past a prostate cancer diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence because the disease was not often discovered until it has had the chance to advance into the later stages. Even in these modern times, a delayed diagnosis could mean death for the patient because advanced prostate cancer cannot be cure – only treated. To that end, a lot of effort has been placed in ensuring early diagnoses of patients who are besotted with prostate cancer.

The fact that there are no symptoms in early stage prostate cancer certainly does not make matters very much easier, with improved and more widespread screening and screening tests, up to 90% of all prostate cancer cases in the United States today are diagnosed early, says the American Cancer Society, at a time when the cancer is both treatable and curable.

One of the screening tests that are used in the screening efforts to detect prostate cancer early is the PSA test, one that a lot of Americans must have heard about at this time, even if they have not experienced it. The PSA test reads the amount or volume of prostate specific antigens (PSAs) in the blood of the patient in order to determine the presence of ailments in the organ. Most men have PSA in their blood at all times, but its level in the body is usually below the critical 4.0ng/ml. 

Prostate cancer cells cause the production of more PSA that are seeped into the blood, as a result when a man suffers from the carcinoma, higher levels of this enzyme are found in his blood and the disease is immediately suspected. That’s right, higher blood PSA levels do not imply that a man has prostate cancer because a lot of other ailments, especially those that affect the prostate gland, also result in PSA spikes. That is why the PSA test is merely a screening and not a diagnostic one. In order to confirm the diagnosis, a biopsy of the prostate gland may be necessary.

The PSA level of a patient however takes on more importance once the cancer has been confirmed – it becomes sort of an indicator of the severity of the patient’s suffering and how far the cancer must have spread. Of course to determine this, other staging tests have to be carried out to determine how much the disease has metastasized, but the results often have to be merged for the best results.

People should be warned that the PSA test is by no means a conclusive one. As mentioned earlier, sometimes the patient could merely be suffering from some other infection or disorder to have a higher PSA level; and in converse, there are actually some manifestations of prostate cancer that do not cause PSA rises, such as small cell sarcomas. A man at risk of prostate cancer would need to be rather more vigilant.

Whats Prostate Cancer Screening and Diagnosis

Due to the absence of symptoms in early stage disease, prostate cancer may not be detectable by the patient early enough to save his life; due to the fact that prostate cancer is not curable in later stages, it is critical that the disease is detected early, or else it would advance, and then the man’s life would be reasonably in danger.

To that end, the American Cancer Society has instituted a number of prostate cancer screening programs that will aid in detecting the disease early enough to make a difference. In addition, they have urged that men approaching middle age should start to go for regular medical checkups at least once a year. The timing for this follows the fact that prostate cancer is not common among men younger than 45 years old, and its incidence steadily rises from 50 years of age.

The screening programs for prostate cancer generally begin with the DRE test – direct rectal examination. During this procedure, the doctor inserts a gloved finger into the rectum of the would-be patient and feels the organ in question for any anomalies such as a distortion, a swelling, or something of that nature.

It is an inconclusive test, but if the physician feels the need for it, he can order another test – the PSA test – to determine if indeed his suspicions are right. Even if the DRE test was negative, the PSA test being a step further up would certainly provide more information.

All men have a certain amount of prostate specific antigens in their blood, but if they are in good prostate health, the level is never up to 4.0ng/ml in the blood. Anything at that level or more is cause for concern, although it could mean that the man suffer from something else besides prostate cancer. Extracting some blood to be examined in the lab should provide the necessary information.

A lot does ride on the intuition of the oncologist or urologist in charge of the procedure, and on the paranoia of the man undergoing the screening. Even though both the DRE and PSA tests do not point directly to prostate cancer, either party may decide that a prostate biopsy is necessary.

During the biopsy a special needle is inserted into the organ the same way a DRE test is done, and tissue samples are extracted from it to be examined under a microscope in the laboratory. More than just telling that the man has prostate cancer (or not), the biopsy provides further critical information about the disease such as the Gleason numbers and the Gleason score, which more or less provide the first basic knowledge about the stage of the disease.

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