Clinical guidelines are too late to screen for prostate cancer

Men with a family history of prostate cancer may need to be screened for up to 11 years before the guidelines require it.

Awareness of prostate cancer. Image Credit: funnyangel / Shutterstock.com

Insufficient data confuses the development of prostate cancer

Early identification of the disease remains important for successful treatment of patients when tackling prostate cancer. Therefore, clinical guidelines on the age at which screening begins are aimed at ensuring that patients are not harmed or adversely affected when treating prostate cancer.

However, due to the lack of sufficient data and the validity of the data, the age at which early screening should begin remains unclear. This causes problems with the diagnosis, subsequent treatment, and outcome of treatment. This is because the patient may already be in the late stages of developing cancer. The most common risk threshold for which clinical guidelines recommend screening for prostate cancer is 50 years, but this may be too late for men who are prone to develop this cancer because of their family history.

To address this clinical shortcoming, a national study in Sweden by Mahdi Fallah and Elham Kharazmi of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, found that progressive or fatal prostate in relatives of men with the disease. Estimates an increased risk of cancer.The· Research Published in open access journals, PLOS Medicine provides new data to redefine the age at which screening should begin.

Early detection, early treatment, and better results

An analysis was conducted on all Swedish male residents and their fathers born after 1931 to determine when screening should begin. Between 1958 and 2015, 88,999 of a total of 6,343,727 men were diagnosed with advanced (III or IV) prostate cancer or died of the disease.

From this data, researchers found that men whose first-degree biological relatives, including fathers, siblings, or sons, were diagnosed with prostate cancer had a “screening risk threshold,” or prostate cancer risk. Estimated the age at which the same level was reached. 50 years of total population.

According to the findings, men with a family history of prostate cancer reached the screening risk threshold by 12 years before the age at which screening is currently recommended.

This result was different among men because they reached thresholds at different ages, depending on the number of direct relatives with prostate cancer and the age at which they were diagnosed. When these factors are included, researchers have shown that men with a family history of prostate cancer reach risk thresholds 2 to 11 years earlier than currently stated in clinical guidelines. It led to a range of age differences in the required screening.

Clinical guidelines need more personalization

The results of this study indicate the need for more sophisticated and comprehensive screening guidelines. Specifically, this study shows that greater personalization is needed to address factors such as family history. Including such factors will provide a better level leading to more effective clinical treatment.

Extensive, generalized and comprehensive clinical guidelines that do not incorporate elements of complexity pose dangerous gaps in clinical knowledge. Indeed, such knowledge gaps represent obstacles that threaten clinical diagnosis and impede the effectiveness of health care.

Future studies will explain these results in other populations and ethnic groups across European boundaries, explaining other potential risk-related factors such as genetics, lifestyle, and even personalized measures. May help to support.

A universal policy in medicine is a thing of the past. Instead of optimizing the use of limited resources in health care, more and more risk adaptation approaches are needed. The team is currently aiming to further improve this individualized approach in screening for a variety of other cancers, including breast cancer. “

Dr. Karazumi