Wow.  It didn’t take long for this to happen.

You may recall that in 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), recommended abandoning PSA screening of any men of any age.  (In 2009, they recommended no screenings for men over 75.)  Now there’s early research showing a 3% per year increase in intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer cases.

The article, Did PSA Test’s Decline Spur Rise in Prostate Cancers, cautions that this is only one study, but that there was a measurable difference since the change in USPSTF guidelines:

Between 2011 and 2013, the study authors noted a 3 percent per year increase in the percentage of prostate cancer patients who had a PSA level of 10 or higher at the time of their diagnosis. PSA levels of 10 or more signify intermediate or high-risk prostate cancer.

Further studies, of course, are needed to confirm these findings.  But if they are confirmed, this could be quite troubling.

The rationale behind eliminating PSA screening was that too many men were being over-treated and suffering life-long side effects impacting quality of life, when they could have lived a relatively normal life with a slow-growing cancer inside them that would have never killed them.

If I were starting this journey today, I’d want to have the formerly routine annual PSA tests and then scrutinize my treatment options very carefully.  I would not want to wait until I became symptomatic and discover I have a PSA of 10 or more on initial diagnosis.

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As far as my personal status is concerned, I continue to lose weight (now 23 lbs. / 10,4 kg since 1 December 2014), and my occurrences of stress incontinence continue to decline.  (The were pretty infrequent before, but even less so now.)  Sexual function seems to be about the same or just a tad better.