Screening for Prostate Cancer: A Review of the ERSPC and PLCO Trials

Elisabeth Eckersberger; Julia Finkelstein; Helen Sadri; Markus Margreiter; Samir S Taneja; Herbert Lepor; Bob Djavan

Screening for Prostate Cancer: A Review of the ERSPC and PLCO Trials

Rev Urol. 2009 Summer;11(3):127-33.

Authors

Elisabeth Eckersberger¹, Julia Finkelstein, Helen Sadri, Markus Margreiter, Samir S Taneja, Herbert Lepor, Bob Djavan

Affiliation

¹ Department of Urology, School of Medicine, New York University New York, NY.

PMID: 19918338
PMCID: PMC2777060

Abstract

The advent of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing in the early 1980s revolutionized the diagnosis of prostate cancer. As a result of PSA testing, there has been a surge in the number of prostate cancer diagnoses. This review examines the results of 2 recent landmark trials that studied the effect of screening on prostate cancer mortality: the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) and the US-based Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial.

Keywords: European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC); PSA screening; Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial.