Preventative Care & Screening
for Men

Speak to your physician about if it is right for you.

Digital rectal exam (DRE) or Prostate specific antigen (PSA)

CTFPHC recommends against screening with PSA

  • Urological associations suggest discussing risks and benefits of PSA screening with patients >50yo (or >40yo if family history or African American) with >15y life expectancy
  • Meta-analysis found no statistically significant differences in prostate cancer-specific mortality or all-cause mortality
  • Only two studies have found a statistically significant decrease in prostate cancer-specific mortality (NNS 791 in ERSPC 2014, and NNS 139 in Goteborg 2014)
  • Over-diagnosis up to 67% for PSA screening (leads to unnecessary biopsy and treatment of clinically insignificant prostate cancer)
  • Harms of screening include infection, hospitalization, death (0.17% of biopsies following a positive PSA screening test)

Starting at age 65-80 – with one time screening ultrasound for abdominal aortic aneurysm.