Great News: That Annual Prostrate Exam May Not Be Necessary!

Best news this year! That annual prostrate exam may not be necessary! A new study has found prostrate screening does not reduce deaths.

There's new evidence that annual prostate cancer screening does not reduce deaths from the disease, even among men in their 50s and 60s and those with underlying health conditions, according to new research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A longer follow-up of more than 76,000 men in a major U.S. study shows that six years of aggressive, annual screening for prostate cancer led to more diagnoses of tumors but not to fewer deaths from the disease.

The updated results of the Prostate, Lung, Cancer, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial will be published online Jan. 6 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"The data confirm that for most men, it is not necessary to be screened annually for prostate cancer," says the study's lead author and principal investigator Gerald Andriole, MD, chief urologic surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. "A large majority of the cancers we found are slow-growing tumors that are unlikely to be deadly."

The PLCO study involved men ages 55 to 74, who were randomly assigned to receive either annual PSA tests for six years and digital rectal exams for four years or "routine care," meaning they had the screening tests only if their physicians recommended them.