What is a PSA test and what do the results mean?
Dr. Joseph Scherger is the men’s health expert at Revolution Health. He is a professor of clinical family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. A: PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, is a protein made by the cells in the prostate gland. The prostate gland is located right next to the bladder, and provides some of the liquid that is part of semen. The urinary tract passes right through the middle of the prostate gland, like the hole in a doughnut, so if the prosate gland gets enlarged, the urine flow can be reduced or cut off. A certain amount of PSA circulates in the blood, and this is measured as a rough estimate of the size of the prostate gland. The larger the gland, the higher the PSA level. Prostate cancer usually causes a high PSA level, but not always. In general, the worse the cancer, the higher the PSA level. The most common reason for a high PSA level is the benign growth of the prostate gland that occurs commonly in middle aged
