Overview
- The American Cancer Society, which issued new guidelines Thursday, now recommends PSA screening every two years for average-risk men ages 50 to 69 and annual screening from 45 to 69 for Black men and others at higher risk.
- The guidance says men 69 or younger with a PSA of 3.0 ng/mL or higher should be retested before further action and that confirmed elevated PSA should be followed by MRI or a validated biomarker test to decide on biopsy.
- The ACS cites new follow-up results from a European randomized screening trial and advances in imaging and biomarkers as the evidence base for the stronger recommendation.
- Experts welcomed better tools to find clinically significant cancers but warned the shift could lead to default, widespread screening, more biopsies and treatments that can cause erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, and bowel problems.
- Practical hurdles could blunt benefits because access to prostate MRI and validated biomarker tests is uneven, raising concerns about equity and whether health systems and clinicians will adopt the new protocol.