The prostate cancer is usually detected with the help of the screening tests or the prostate biopsy. The screening tests have to be done regularly and they are recommended for men who have reached the age of forty or fifty. The prostate cancer has no early symptoms so these tests are important to discover the organ-confined tumor in its early stages. Left untreated it will eventually develop and spread in the body becoming locally advanced or in the worst case, metastatic. The result of the above tests can be normal and that means that cancerous cells are not detected or abnormal. In this later situation the prostate biopsy is necessary to make a correct diagnose, since cancer is not the only disease affecting the prostate and not all tumors, like the malignant ones, can develop cancer. The screening tests imply two procedures: the digital rectal exam or DRE and the prostate specific antigen blood tests or PSA.

The first medical procedure is a bit unpleasant and the doctor has to insert a gloved finger into the rectum to palpate the prostate. If he feels hardness or a lump on the surface of the prostate that usually indicates the existence of a tumor. The other procedure is less unpleasant and the blood test uses as an indicator for determining the existence of cancer the prostate specific antigen. The PSA is a protein produced by the cells of the prostate organ and is regarded as a tumor or a biological marker. The PSA blood tests measure the level of the PSA in the blood, in normal cases being very low. A sample of blood is examined in the laboratory and depending of the test results the doctor will decide whether to further examine the patient or look for the prostate cancer signs.

The PSA blood tests don’t accurately indicate the existence of cancer, since a tumor is not only malignant but also benign. Cancer is not the only disease which affects the gland; the prostatitis or the benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH are not related to cancer, and even though a patient is diagnosed with these disorders that does not mean that cancer won’t develop as well. The level of the prostate specific antigen doesn’t indicate the existence of cancer or that of a benign tumor. This blood test is recommended to be done annually because according to its results small tumors can be detected: if the PSA test result indicates under four nanograms per milliliter of blood then it is considered as a normal result, the result between four and ten is at the borderline, depending on the patients age, genes, symptoms and even race, while a result higher than ten is abnormal, and it is necessary for a doctor to inquire further medical investigations to reach an exact diagnosis. Values between thirty and forty indicate the existence of a prostate cancer.

The PSA blood test is a bit controversial because there is a possibility that the diagnose is nor entirely accurate. For example, small tumors may be detected early but there isn’t the certainty that these tumors will actually develop in the near future into cancer or if they are life threatening. This situation known as overdiagnosis can create some complications for the patients and even though both screening tests don’t give a one hundred per cent accurate result, they still remain the best methods used for discovering the prostate cancer in its early stages.