Common prostate cancer test seen as unreliable There will be a
lot of interest in cancer screening after Steve Jobs' death, and
now there is a major change coming is in the the screening test
for prostate cancer. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon
LaPook reports that a key government panel is set to recommend
that healthy men no longer receive the PSA, or prostate specific
antigen, blood test. Almost 241,000 cases of prostate cancer,
and almost 34,000 resulting deaths are expected this year. Every
year, thousands of Americans receive screening with a blood test
called PSA in the hopes of detecting and treating prostate
cancer early. But the test has come under fire in recent years,
and next week a government task force is expected to make a
startling announcement: men should not receive routine PSA
screening. The PSA blood test has become more and more
controversial over the past decade because it is notoriously
poor at identifying cancer. The problem is that PSA can rise
from causes other than cancer, su