Health Buzz: New Prostate Cancer Screening Guidelines

March 4, 2010 RSS Feed Print

New Prostate Cancer Screening Guidelines Boost "Shared Decision Making"

The American Cancer Society has been cautious about making blanket recommendations for prostate cancer screening for years; since 1997, the group has said screening with a PSA test should be offered to eligible men but that physicians should explain the uncertainties and potential risks of the test as well as the possible benefits, U.S. News's Katherine Hobson writes. That basic recommendation hasn't changed in the ACS's latest guidelines for prostate cancer screening, published online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

But the guidelines, updated after two large trials of prostate cancer screening last year reached mixed conclusions about whether it saves lives, cast light on a process you may soon be hearing more about: shared, or informed, decision making. As it applies to prostate cancer screening, that means men eligible for the prostate-specific antigen test—those 50 and older who are at average risk and younger men who are at higher risk because they have a family history or are African-American—need to know that while screening "may be associated with a reduction in the risk of dying from prostate cancer … evidence is conflicting and experts disagree about the value of screening," the ACS says. Read more.

[Slide Show: 11 Screening Tests You Should (or Shouldn't) Consider.] [Read Is PSA Screening for Prostate Cancer Worthwhile? and The PSA Test: 7 Reasons It Still Matters.]

COBRA Subsidy Gets a 1-Month Extension

A law signed by President Obama on Tuesday gives some relief to workers who will lose their jobs in March, offering them subsidized COBRA insurance, Business Insurance reports. Eligibility for the COBRA subsidy, which pays 65 percent of premiums for a 15-month period, had expired in February. But the new law extends that deadline through March 31. In some cases, even if you lost coverage before losing your job (if, say, your employer cut your hours), you may still be eligible for reduced COBRA premiums, the publication reports. Legislation under consideration would extend the subsidy to workers laid off through the remainder of the year.

[Read Lost Your Job? There's Still Time to Get the COBRA Subsidy and Lost Your Health Insurance? Some Resources.]

The Benefits of Popping an Aspirin (and Some Risks)

Aspirin, that familiar, inexpensive little white pill, has long been known to carry cardiovascular benefits in addition to its powers as an anti-inflammatory painkiller. "The real question is: 'Who is it for?' " says Jeffrey Berger, cardiologist at New York University Langone Medical Center. Identifying the exact groups of patients who will receive the greatest benefit from aspirin in relation to the risks the drug brings—a higher risk of bleeding, including in the brain, and possible gastrointestinal problems—is a bit more difficult than one might think, U.S. News's Sarah Baldauf writes.

Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that older folks with no clinical cardiovascular disease who were flagged as being at increased risk—identified by a simple test that compares blood pressure in the ankle with that in the arm and can indicate peripheral artery disease—might not gain any protection from that daily aspirin, even though PAD is a form of cardiovascular disease. Read more.

[Slide Show: 14 Things You Might Not Know About Aspirin.] [Read Aspirin: A Blockbuster Therapy for Breast Cancer Survivors?]

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