Should I get screened for Prostate Cancer?

Thinking about getting screened for prostate cancer?  Talk to your healthcare provider!  Together you can consider your personal risk factors and how you value the potential benefits and harms of screening, diagnosis, and treatment.

Screening Recommendations

In 2018, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) made the following recommendations about prostate cancer screening:

• Men who are 55 to 69 years old should make individual decisions about being screened for prostate cancer with a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test.
• Before deciding, men should talk to their doctor about the benefits and harms of screening for prostate cancer, including the benefits and harms of other tests and treatment.
• Men who are 70 and older should not be screened for prostate cancer routinely.
• This recommendation applies to men who:
  • Are at average risk for prostate cancer.
  • Are at increased risk for prostate cancer.
  • Do not have symptoms of prostate cancer.
  • Have never been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Other organizations, like the American Urological Association and the American Cancer Society, may have other recommendations.

Talk to your healthcare Provider

According to the CDC, the goal of screening for prostate cancer is to find cancers that may be at high risk for spreading if not treated.  If found and treated early, they can be prevented from spreading.  However, most prostate cancers grow slowly or not at all.

If you are thinking about being screened, you and your doctor should consider:

• If you have a family history of prostate cancer.
• If you have other medical conditions that may make it hard for you to be treated for prostate cancer if it is found, or that may make you less likely to benefit from screening.
• How you value the potential benefits and harms of screening, diagnosis, and treatment.
• Ethnicity: You are at increased risk for getting or dying from prostate cancer if you are African American.

When discussing if prostate cancer screening is right for you, you and your provider can also discuss Cancer and Cancer Risk Detection Screening options at IHG.  These options include, A multi-cancer early detection test called Galleri from GRAIL, and a Hereditary Cancer Risk/Germline test called MyRisk from Myriad Genetics.  Galleri tells patients and providers if there is a signal of cancer present today. MyRisk tells patients their risk of developing cancer based upon their hereditary genetic markers. 

Learn more about these options

Learn more!

Learn more about the possible benefits and possible harms of prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.