Medical panel advises against common prostate cancer test - ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, Sports

Medical panel advises against common prostate cancer test

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  • Friday, May 17 2013 11:17 PM EDT2013-05-18 03:17:33 GMT
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A national medical panel advises against men using the Prostate Specific Antigen test for cancer screening.

The US Preventive Services Task Force is a panel of doctors who advise the government on cancer screenings and other ways to avoid disease.  The panel says it found the PSA blood test unreliable, resulting in too many false positives.

The PSA test measures a protein called prostate-specific antigen.

The task force says the test often leads to unnecessary needle biopsies for men who don't actually have cancer.  

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second deadliest cancer among men, and occurs most often in African-American men.