Prostate cancer screening

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of prostate cancer screening program. The informative value of some diagnostic techniques for detecting prostate cancer was analyzed paying a special attention to early diagnosis of this disease. When prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was more than 10 ng/ral, sensitivity and specificity of the test were 69 % and 96 %, respectively. However, such high values were explained by predominance of patients with locally-advanced and disseminated prostate cancer. For the PSA level of more than 4 ng/ml, sensitivity of the test increased to 92 % but specificity was 35 % making possible to detect more cases with early prostate cancer. The efficiency of transrectal ultrasound examination was higher than that of manual rectal examination (specificity was 68 % and sensitivity was 85 %). Our results showed that the use of any one of the diagnostic methods is not enough for detecting early prostate cancer. The maximum efficiency for detecting localized tumors was noted using the comprehensive assessment of findings taking account the PSA level (more than 4 ng/ml), manual rectal examination and transrcclal ultrasound examination. The comprehensive program on prostate cancer diagnosis allowed us to detect primary tumors up to 4,8 % among population considered as «practically healthy» and significantly increase the number of patients with stage I-II prostate cancer.