One great danger about the renowned prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is its established history of overdiagnosing prostate cancer, a recent study found out. A study conducted by H. Gilbert Welch, professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy, revealed that of the 3.7 million diagnoses of prostate cancer in the US alone from 1986 to 2005, 1.3 million were overdiagnosed. The sad fact is, one million of that 1.3 million have been recommended for radiotherapy or surgery to remove the prostate when that should not have been necessary as the growths it detects are not harmful at all. In fact, according to Welch, the test cannot discriminate the smally minority of cancers that spreads rapidly from the large, slow-growing ones that are not harmful. Click here for details.
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