PSA Testing: New Recommendations and Talking with Your Patients

The question of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer has been fraught with uncertainty. Six years ago, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against PSA-based screening for prostate cancer. This year, the Task Force has concluded that “for men aged 55 to 69 years, the decision to undergo periodic PSA-based screening for prostate cancer should be an individual one.”

What should the physician-patient conversation include? In a May 8 editorial in JAMA Oncology, two Cleveland Clinic staff members discuss the how and why of “Meaningful Physician-Patient Conversations,” when it comes to PSA testing. They write, “The US healthcare delivery system needs a structure that not only allows, but encourages, a space for physicians and patients to engage in meaningful conversations where shared decision making has the opportunity to take place.”

To learn more about these crucial conversations, read the May 8 editorial in JAMA Oncology by Cleveland Clinic’s Michael W. Kattan, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Quantitative Services, and Anita D. Misra-Hebert, MD, MPH, from the Department of Internal Medicine.