What is the purpose of a PSA test?
PSA = Prostate-Specific Antibodies It’s a test for prostate cancer at its earliest stage. If a cancer develops there, it has been found that antibodies are produced in your body which are very specific to that disease. So the blood test for these antibodies can screen for cancer risk long before the cancer can be detected in any other way. However, there’s a balance there: many doctors will want you to have surgery right away if the PSA test turns up positive, but in many older men the complications and risks from surgery are more dangerous than the cancer. That is, prostate cancer is *often* a slow-growing cancer that doesn’t get a chance to kill its victims, because they die of other causes long before it becomes a problem. So taking the test, although that’s no big deal in itself, can lead to unwarranted stresses in older men who might not feel competent to make the decision whether to opt for surgery or not. The feeling is, if the cancer can’t hurt them, why have them worry about a
