Prostate cancer screening performs higher than breast cancer screening at detecting serious cancers, reducing mortality and stopping unnecessary harm, based on a brand new study.
The outcomes shall be presented on March 15, 2026 on the European Association of Urology Congress (EAU26) in London. The research can be accepted for publication in
The researchers claim that due to the similarities between the 2 types of screening, it now not is sensible to reject prostate cancer screening on the one hand and support breast cancer screening on the opposite. Still, they advise caution because their research compares a study using a population-based screening program and two several types of cancer.
Although breast and prostate cancer are essentially the most commonly diagnosed cancers in men and ladies in Europe, early detection of those diseases differs significantly. Organized Breast cancer screening Programs have existed across Europe for greater than three a long time. Early detection of prostate cancer is lagging behind, largely as a consequence of concerns in regards to the effectiveness of the PSA blood test and the risks of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Nevertheless, many men undergo various, “opportunistic” screening for the disease, most frequently based on self-referral.
Several prostate cancer screening studies in Europe have now reported long-term results showing a reduced risk of death from prostate cancer. This risk reduction is analogous to that seen in breast cancer screening programs.
The brand new evaluation compares the 2 varieties of cancer screening by way of the effectiveness of diagnostic tests and the degree of overdiagnosis. The researchers from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg relied on data from the PROBASE prostate cancer early detection study in Germany and the country’s breast cancer early detection program.
They used data from 39,392 men who had their first PSA blood test at age 45 or 50 as a part of the PROBASE study. They compared this with data from just over 2.8 million women aged 50 to 69 who had undergone mammography as a part of the organized breast cancer early detection program in Germany. They found:
- A PSA blood test followed by an MRI scan produces the next variety of false positive results than a mammogram (37-42% vs. 10%).
- An analogous proportion of men and ladies were referred biopsy (0.8-2.4% for men and 1.1% for ladies) because men within the PROBASE trial were triaged based on various aspects before referral to find out the likelihood of great cancer (referred to as risk stratification).
- Biopsies were much more prone to detect significant cancers with prostate screening than with breast screening (50-68% vs. 10%), suggesting that fewer men were referred unnecessarily for biopsy.
- The odds of invasive cancers identified were similar for each prostate and breast cancer screening (60-74% vs. 73%).
- Prostate cancer screening was more prone to detect nonaggressive cancers than breast cancer screening (26-31% vs. 22%). Nonetheless, the choice for energetic surveillance is well established for prostate cancer, and researchers claim that this is able to limit the chance of overtreatment. Lively surveillance involves monitoring low-grade cancers and never starting treatment (radiation therapy or surgery) until they progress.
Until we’ve a population-based screening program for prostate cancer, we cannot make an accurate comparable comparison with breast cancer. Nonetheless, we will make some educated guesses based on the info from our study, which shows that if prostate cancer screening were expanded to the broader population, the outcomes would likely be very just like those for breast cancer. Although our study used German data, the outcomes are applicable to other countries. The ultimate query we now must answer is: How much does this cost in comparison with what we already pay for opportunistic investigations? And that work is already underway.”
Dr. Sigrid Carlsson, study leader and department head, Clinical Epidemiology of Early Cancer Detection, German Cancer Research Center
Tobias Nordström is a clinical urologist and associate professor on the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and a member of the EAU Scientific Congress Office. He said: “Prostate cancer screening has much to learn from breast cancer screening and that’s the reason this evaluation is a vital addition to our knowledge base. Because comparisons of this nature are very demanding, the outcomes should be viewed with caution. Nonetheless, the clear overall similarities between breast and prostate cancer screening results show that we’re moving in the fitting direction and ensuring that prostate cancer screening brings more profit than harm.”
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