Looking Back at PCPT: Looking Forward to New Paradigms in Prostate Cancer Screening and Prevention

Objectives: Provide a critical summary of the latest interpretation of findings from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT). Methods: Findings from PCPT and recently published post-hoc analyses are reviewed. Results: PCPT demonstrated that finasteride can reduce the prevalence of prostate cancer, permitted the first large-scale assessment of the performance characteristics of prostate-specific antigen for prostate cancer screening, and identified new-onset erectile dysfunction as an early predictor of cardiovascular events. Conclusions: PCPT has and will continue to yield valuable information regarding future strategies for prostate cancer prevention and detection, benign prostatic hyperplasia, and other matters of public health importance.