Overdiagnosis Due to Prostate-Specific Antigen Screening: Lessons From U.S. Prostate Cancer Incidence Trends

Abstract

Among men with prostate cancer that would be detected only at autopsy, these rates correspond to overdiagnosis rates of, at most, 15% in whites and 37% in blacks. The observed trends in prostate cancer incidence are consistent with considerable overdiagnosis among PSA-detected cases. However, the results suggest that the majority of screen-detected cancers diagnosed between 1988 and 1998 would have presented clinically and that only a minority of cases found at autopsy would have been detected by PSA testing.