“As I’ve been trying to make clear for many years now, P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t,” said Richard J. Ablin, PhD, a research professor of immunobiology and pathology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and the president of the Robert Benjamin Ablin Foundation for Cancer Research, who discovered PSA (prostate-specific antigen) in 1970.
“Infections, over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen, and benign swelling of the prostate can all elevate a man’s P.S.A. levels, but none of these factors signals cancer,” Ablin notes.
“Men with low readings might still harbor dangerous cancers, while those with high readings might be completely healthy.”
He wrote this in an Op-Ed in The New York Times in 2010 which was titled The Great Prostate Mistake.
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