RACIAL DISPARITY IN PROSTATE-CANCER DIAGNOSES NARROWING AFTER PSA The PSA era may be auguring well for African- American men. In a study of 195 African-American men and 587 Caucasians who had a radical prostatectomy for clinically localized prostate carcinoma in a major Army hospital, the traditional racial gap eroded steadily from 1988 to 1999 in the rates of extracapsular extension, positive margins, pretreatment PSA levels, and age at the time of surgery. The percentage of African-American men with extracapsular extension decreased from 100% in 1988-89 to 34.8% in 1998-99 and for white men from 56.9% to 43.2%, Dr. Judd W. Moul of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Center for Prostate Disease Research here and colleagues reported in the Nov. 15 Cancer. The rate of positive margins for African-American men declined from 100% for the 1988-89 year group to 26.1% for the 1998-99 year group, they reported, and the rate of positive margins for white men fell from 41.2% to 27.0%. The mean age at surgery decreased from 66.6 to 59.9 for African- American men and from 65.9 to 61.1 for white men, they found. For PSA levels at diagnosis, the decrease was from 16.5 to 6.5 ng/dL for African-American men and from 10.1 to 6.6 ng/dL for white men. The investigators concluded that the decreases in extracapsular extensions and positive margins in African-American men are "primarily because of PSA testing, coupled with improved public awareness and equal access to care." They said that if an African-American man asks a clinician to make the decision on whether PSA testing should be done, it should be done. (Sorry we neglected to record where we found this article.) Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.