Blood Test For PSA - Why Have A PSA Done

Introduction

When your doctor takes a blood test for your annual physical, one of the things you should insure he/she does is measure your PSA, especially if you are over 50 years of age.

The U.S. Preventive Service Task Force, founded by our government, is recommending that the PSA test used to screen for cancer of the prostate be dropped. The reason for this recommendation is that the PSA blood test leads to over treatment by over use of radiation and surgery.

I have an enlarged prostate and without the PSA blood test this condition would not have been found, resulting in me not being aware of some potential complications I could develop.

Here is why you should always demand a PSA blood test when you have your annual physical, especially if you are over 50.

What Is A PSA Blood Test

Prostate-specific antigen or PSA, is a measure of a specific enzyme produced by your prostate. This enzyme keeps your semen in liquid form to help ensure it reaches its destination.
The enzyme normally stays in your urinary tract, but a small amount may also be released into your blood stream.

Prostate Problems And Your PSA

When you develop prostate problems, such as prostatitis, cancer of the prostate or an enlarged prostate, the prostate will grow allowing more of the enzyme to be released to the blood stream, thus elevating your PSA blood test results.

Normally for a healthy prostate, your PSA should be < 3 ng/mL, but if you have prostate problems, it will be above this. In my case my PSA blood test results was 5.8 ng/mL.

Though prostatitis and an enlarged prostate can be detected by other means, you have to be looking specifically for these two conditions to find them. Since I did not have any symptoms of prostatitis or an enlarged prostate, there was no need to do any testing for these conditions.

My elevated PSA led to a biopsy of my prostate to screen cancer out as a reason for the high levels of the enzyme in my blood. The results came back negative for cancer and my prostate was determined to be enlarged.

Without the PSA blood test I would not have known about my enlarged prostate and would be unaware of the complications such as urinary tract infection, gall bladder damage and kidney stones that I could develop with an enlarged prostate.

Conclusion

U.S. Preventive Service Task Force recommends that the PSA blood testing, used for cancer screening of the prostate, be stopped because it results in excess medical treatment.