Studies are continuing to find that black men require earlier and more frequent prostate cancer screening in comparison to white men. The reason is that even if a black man has the same prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level as a white man, the black man has a higher risk of actually having prostate cancer and more likely to have an aggressive form of the disease.
New research published in the journal CANCER came to this same conclusion. Approximately 75,000 black men and over 207,000 white men were recruited for this study. These participants were men who had received medical care at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Higher risk of prostate cancer for black than white men
To help predict the probability of finding prostate cancer from a first biopsy, researchers used modeling, a mathematical representation of patterns to be predicted. What the researchers found was that upon taking the first biopsy, prostate cancer was identified in 55% of black men and 43% in white men. Upon further review of factoring in other features, the black veterans had a 50% greater risk of a diagnosis of prostate cancer during their first biopsy than white veterans.
More importantly, if a black man had a PSA of 4.0 ng/mL, this represented a 49% greater risk of having prostate cancer being found. For white men with the same PSA number, their risk was 39% probability of finding prostate cancer.
The worst news, however, for black men was that black men who had a PSA level of 4.0 ng/mL, their risk of the disease, was equal to that of white men having a PSA of 13.4 ng/mL.
The takeaway from this study is that consideration of screening earlier in populations of men, especially black men, who have a higher risk than average of developing prostate cancer, should be implemented across the board. It was also suggested that each individual man’s risk for prostate cancer needs to always include their race, age, family history, and other medical conditions.
Dr. David Samadi is the Director of Men’s Health and Urologic Oncology at St. Francis Hospital in Long Island. He’s a renowned and highly successful board certified Urologic Oncologist Expert and Robotic Surgeon in New York City, regarded as one of the leading prostate surgeons in the U.S., with a vast expertise in prostate cancer treatment and Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Prostatectomy. Dr. Samadi is a medical contributor to NewsMax TV and is also the author of The Ultimate MANual, Dr. Samadi’s Guide to Men’s Health and Wellness, available online both on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Visit Dr. Samadi’s websites at robotic oncology and prostate cancer 911.
