Survival rates for prostate cancer 'far better in US'

Published on Wednesday 16 April 2008 22:10

PROSTATE cancer death-rates have fallen almost four times faster in the US than in the UK since the early 1990s, a study has shown.

The reason could be due to different approaches to screening and treatment in the two countries, say researchers.

But the jury is still out on whether blood tests, which are carried out far more routinely in the US, contributed to the better record across the Atlantic.

Prostate cancer screening uses the PSA test, which looks for raised levels of a protein called prostate-specific antigen.

PSA leaks out of the prostate gland into the blood when cancer is present, but can also appear for other reasons.

So far, there has been no robust evidence to indicate that carrying out PSA tests on large numbers of men has an impact on prostate cancer mortality.

Yet the test is almost routine in the US. In 2001, 57 per cent of US men aged 50 or older reported having had a PSA test in the past 12 months. By contrast, each year between 1999 and 2002, an estimated 6 per cent of men aged 45 to 84 had the test in the UK.

The research, led by Dr Simon Collin, from the University of Bristol, compared death rates in the UK and US between 1975 and 2004.