Impact of PSA levels on second-round screening for the development of prostate cancer in men with low baseline PSA levels (≤2.0 mg/ml).

Background: To investigate the cumulative probability of developing prostate cancer according to prostate-specific antigen (PSA) velocity (PSAV) from first-to second-round PSA-based population screening in men with low baseline serum PSA levels.
Patients and Methods: A total of 11,913 men aged between 54 and 69 years with baseline PSA levels of ≤2.0 ng/ml at the first population screening and who underwent population screening at least twice, were enrolled. The cumulative probability of developing prostate cancer according to age, baseline PSA and PSAV was investigated. The clinicopathological features of screen-detected cancer were also investigated.
Results: Out of the 11,913 men, 110 (0.92%) were pathologically diagnosed with prostate cancer during the observation period. The cumulative probability of developing prostate cancer in all participants after 5 and 10 years was 0.64% and 1.79%, respectively. Univariate and multivariate analyses determined that baseline PSA levels and PSAVs were significant predictors of developing cancer and the hazard ratio increased with increasing baseline PSA levels and PSAVs. The optimal PSAV cut-off levels for prostate cancer development were 0.069, 0.106 and 0.285 for the baseline PSA ranges of 0.0-1.0, 1.1-1.5 and 1.6-2.0 ng/ml, respectively. There were no significant differences in baseline PSA levels and PSAVs according to the clinical characteristics of the screen-detected prostate cancer patients.
Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that serum PSA levels at second round screening were a strong predictor of cancer development in men with baseline PSA levels≤2.0 ng/ml at the first population screening.
(Copyright© 2014 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.)