Prostate news article, April 2008

UK PROSTATE CANCER INITIATIVE FAILS TO INFLUENCE PSA REFERRALS First published in Br J Cancer 2008; 98: 1176-1181. Article by Lynda Williams

MedWire News: Research shows that the UK's Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme (PCRMP) has not significantly altered patterns of urologist referrals following prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing.

The PCRMP guidelines were sent to UK family physicians in 2002 and recommended PSA threshold levels to trigger further urology examination, Jane Melia and colleagues, from the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey, UK, explain.

"The referral rate was lower than expected if the guidelines had been followed," Melia et al write."The influence of the guidelines seems to have been low."

This may have been due to only half (56%) of doctors participating in the study being aware of the PCRMP," they note.

The full text of this article is available here in .pdf format.