Screening reduces prostate cancer deaths by 50 percent

A blood test for prostate cancer helped reduce deaths from the disease by almost 50 percent after 14 years in a study, though overall mortality barely changed as patients died of other causes.

Of 10,000 men invited for the screening every two years, 44 died of prostate cancer, compared with 78 of 10,000 men who weren't offered the test, according to researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Total deaths were almost identical, at 1,981 in the screening group compared with 1,982.

The researchers said 293 men need to be screened and 12 diagnosed with prostate cancer to save one from dying of the disease. The finding may influence doctors' debate over whether there's too much screening and treatment of prostate cancer.

"Most of us feel better overtreating than undertreating," said Elizabeth Kavaler, an urologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, who wasn't involved in the research. "This study supports that approach."

The prostate-cancer tests reduced deaths from the disease more than comparable screening has done for breast cancer and colorectal cancer, according to the study. The results from the research, which is continuing, were published online in Lancet Oncology.

In the study, 11.4 percent of men in the screening group and 7.2 percent in the control group were diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Prostate-cancer screening has been controversial because the tests can detect cancers that don't threaten the patients' health, resulting in unnecessary treatment that can impair quality of life.