Large studies that found benefit of PSA testing may be flawed

[Nelson Vergel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/opinion/the-problem-with-prostate-screening.html?_r=0


As many of you know, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the use of PSA testing. Some large-scale studies have shown that PSA testing leads to unnecessary biopsies and risks in men. Now in this article the inventor of PSA testing is questioning data from studies that actually found a benefit in PSA testing. Two of these large European studies that found a benefit of using PSA do not allow other investigators to look at the data. There may even be some conflict of interest in researchers that published these papers.

 

[giamegan]

thanks a bunch

 

[Jasen Bruce]

Sums it up right here:

"That the researchers would block access to government- and charity-supported research is bad enough. Even worse, it calls into question why, if the data was strong, the researchers wouldn't open it up to independent scrutiny.
As it turns out, there are some major concerns about the methodology and results of the studies, first raised last fall in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by two Australian researchers."

Makes you wonder how often this type of alleged dishonesty takes place in both the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries.