| Popis: |
Prostate cancer represents a significant health burden worldwide. The cancer incidence had substantially increased since the introduction of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in cancer screening. This had led to considerable debates among health professionals and epidemiologists, since PSA as a screening tool seemed to be far from perfect. In New Zealand, the controversy was quite prominent in the last three decades, with some advocating the benefits of screening, while others concerned regarding the risk of harms. With the absence of an organised screening programme and the appropriate monitoring and quality assurance procedures, the effects of the PSA testing debate had undoubtedly caused a variability in the opportunistic prostate cancer screening practices in the community. This, in addition to the recent rapid advancements in prostate cancer imaging, and updated results from randomised trials, have made it mandatory to question the validity of continuing with the current approach to prostate cancer screening. However, high-quality local data on these aspects had been lacking, which represents an ongoing challenge to developing robust and sound health policies. |
