The prostate cancer screening tests that have become an annual ritual for many men don’t appear to reduce deaths from the disease among those with a limited life-expectancy, according to early results of a major U.S. study involving 75,000 men. Results released today from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial show that six years of aggressive, annual screening for prostate cancer led to more diagnoses of prostate tumors but not to fewer deaths from the disease. The study, led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and conducted at 10 sites, will appear online March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine (and in the journal’s print edition on March 26). ‘The important message is that for men with a life expectancy of seven to 10 years or less, it is probably not necessary to be screened for prostate cancer, says the study’s lead author and principal investigator Gerald Andriole, M.D., chief urologic surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. But it’s too soon, he added, to make broad screening recommendations for all men based on the study’s initial findings. […]