Tide of opinion turning again
In 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) — a powerful, voluntary group that sets guidelines for primary care physicians — came out against the mass screening of healthy men with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests for the early detection of prostate cancer.
That statement, which was somewhat reversed in 2018, has lived on and continues to fuel hot debates over the use of screening and whether the guidelines themselves caused more harm than benefit. And there likely will be more arguments in the years ahead as medical groups conduct uptakes on guidelines and new studies appear.