According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second leading cancer killer in men. An estimated one out of every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lives. More than thirty thousand men die from prostate cancer in the United States each year.
Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio have developed a prostate cancer risk calculator to help predict a man’s odds of developing prostate cancer. The research team believes their risk calculator can give a better look at the odds of developing prostate cancer than prostate-specific antigen blood tests alone.
Prostate-specific antigen blood tests are important in predicting prostate cancer, but are only one part of the bigger picture. The online risk calculator also accounts for the man’s age, race, family history, and prior biopsy findings. Other test results, like prostate-specific antigen levels and results of digital rectal exams are included as well.
Currently, the American Cancer Society recommends an annual prostate-specific antigen blood test (PSA) and a digital rectal exam (DRE) for men over the age of fifty. Men at higher risk — like those with a history of prostate cancer in the family — are urged to begin annual testing at the age of forty-five.
This online risk calculator is based on data collected over the last seven years from more than five thousand men who participated in a prostate cancer prevention trial. All the men in the test had annual prostate-specific antigen testing and digital rectal exams annually. After seven years, more than twenty percent of the study participants developed prostate cancer. The researchers found that family history was just as strongly associated with developing prostate cancer as abnormal test results from a PSA or DRE.
The online prostate risk calculator integrates multiple risk factors to help make predictions of risk more accurate. More importantly, it allows a person to take their PSA test results and look at it in a holistic context — what does this result mean in terms of my whole body, my general health, and my actual prostate cancer risk?