Prostate cancer screening breakthrough could prevent overdiagnoses by up to half

A breakthrough study conducted by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet of Solna in Sweden, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, examines a promising new diagnostic pathway for prostate cancer. The study demonstrates that overdiagnoses of low-risk cancers, one of the major barriers to nationwide screening, could be halved by this novel diagnostic pathway. At present, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests and traditional biopsies are the primary tools for diagnosing prostate cancer despite a lack of specificity and frequent overdiagnosis of low-risk cancers. However, the randomized STHLM3MRI study of 12,750 Swedish men, conducted between 2018–2021, has shown promise for increasing...