Improvement Insights Blog
PSA Test – a Public Health Disaster
Dr. Richard J. Albin, creator of the PSA test for prostate cancer, says that the devastating consequences treatments including surgery and radiation therapy caused:
- 5,000 deaths soon after surgery
- up to 70,000 serious complications
- 50% had persistent blood in their semen
- up to 300,000 suffered impotence, incontinence or both.
He now calls the widespread use of the PSA test a “Public Health Disaster.” As a result of these findings, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force will recommend that healthy men no longer receive PSA testing.
Unnecessary tests and treatments of all kinds are estimated to cost $250 Billion in the U.S. The cost to patients and their families are probably at least another $250 Billion as suggested by the prostate data above. That’s a half-a-trillion dollars we could save to pay for healthcare reform.
