ATLANTA – The American Cancer Society is urging doctors to make clearer to men that the test used to screen for prostate cancer has limits and may lead to unnecessary treatments that do more harm than good.

The cancer society has not recommended routine screening for most men since the mid-1990s, and that is not changing. But its new advice goes farther to warn of the limitations of the PSA blood test that millions of American men get now. It also says digital rectal exams should be an option rather than part of a standard screening.

The new advice is the latest pushback from routine screening to hunt for early cancers. Last year, a government task force said most women don’t need mammograms in their 40s and a doctors group said most women in their 20s don’t need annual Pap tests…. (more…)