2004-6-8
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Many older men are tested each year for cancer of the prostate
gland. This organ is part of the male reproductive system. One test
measures levels in the blood of a protein known as P.S.A. P.S.A. is
prostate-specific antigen. Most men with prostate cancer have
increased levels of this protein.
The test results come back from the laboratory as a number.
Doctors usually consider the results normal if the P.S.A. level is
below four. But a new study raises questions. The study found
prostate cancer in fifteen percent of older men with P.S.A. levels
below four. But the researchers also found that most of these
cancers were not especially dangerous. The risk of prostate cancer
increased as the P.S.A. levels got higher.
A result above ten is considered high. But a high P.S.A. level
does not always mean that a man has cancer. There could be an
infection or an enlarged prostate. This is a common problem in older
men.
The study involved almost three-thousand men. They were ages
sixty-two to ninety-one. Ian Thompson of the Texas Health Science
Center at San Antonio led the study. The results appeared in the New
England Journal of Medicine.
Doctors often perform biopsies on men with increased P.S.A.
levels. They cut a small amount of tissue from the prostate to look
for cancer. If cancer is found, then the question arises of what to
do next.
Doctors must decide how aggressive the cancer is. Non-aggressive
prostate cancers usually grow slowly. They do not normally spread to
other organs.
Researchers say almost thirty percent of men in their thirties
and forties have prostate cancer but do not know it. By their
sixties and seventies, however, two out of three men may have
prostate cancer.
Some doctors advise men with non-aggressive prostate cancer to
delay treatment. But, in the United States, almost thirty-thousand
men per year die of prostate cancer. So most patients elect to have
treatment. This often means an operation to remove the prostate.
Last December, Secretary of State Colin Powell had an operation
in which doctors removed his prostate because of cancer. Senator
John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, had the same
experience early last year.
This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Jerilyn
Watson.