Obesity May Cause Prostate Cancer Screening Interference
A study has shown that the current prostate cancer screening process made to obese men is more like to miss tumors. This finding was discovered when researchers made a study to over 500 men, which resulted for obese men to have low level of prostate specific antigen or PSA even if they have abnormal prostate findings.
Researchers test PSA level to screen prostate cancer because PSA level often rise before any prostate cancer’s symptoms are developed. It is possible to have a normal PSA level yet still to have prostate cancer, although this situation is uncommon. As a general rule, higher a man’s PSA level, more likely the man will have prostate cancer.
The current findings simply suggests that obese men has relatively low PSA level and thus some cancer cannot be detected right away or worse will be missed. Dr. Freedland, the senior investigator on the study, said that excessive blood volume is most likely the reason why obese men have lower PSA level, which may also resulted into a dilution effect.
Therefore, Freedland suggest that dilution effect should be taken into consideration when interpreting PSA levels in obese man so that prostate cancer in obese men can be detected more accurately.
According to studies, overweight men have a PSA value of 5 percent lower compared to those in normal weight. Mildly obese on the other hand have 14 percent difference; while for moderately and severely obese men, the difference was 29 percent lower. With the current data presented, researchers suggest that the PSA levels used to recommend for biopsy should be adjusted according to a man’s level of obesity.