After decades of near indifference to prostate cancer, the population and physicians have geared up to detect this potentially fatal malignancy at a stage before it spreads. This is in marked contrast to the past when prostate cancer was found most commonly when it had traveled through the blood stream into the bones and was incurable.
New technology produces new questions.
These include not only how to interpret innovative tests but how to best treat localized disease. If one believes that it is important to detect cancers early then P.S.A. and rectal examination should be part of the medical armamentarium used in evaluating otherwise healthy men. When a blood test exists, there is created the question of what is defined as normal and abnormal. This is somewhat arbitrary. Whatever level is recommended, there can be cancers hidden below that level and normal prostates above.