Potential prostate cancer patients have been urged not to panic after worrying reports about the effectiveness of the main diagnostic test.

A story from Britain?s The Independent newspaper last month said the only available test for prostate cancer had been declared ?all but useless? by the Californian professor who developed it 17 years ago.

But King Edward VII Memorial Hospital cancer specialist Dr. Kannan Thiruvengadasamy said the PSA test ? for prostate-specific antigen, a protein that can indicate prostate cancer when found in high levels in the blood ? is still valid.

Professor Thomas Stamey of Stanford University first suggested that a blood test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) could indicate the presence of cancer in 1987.

The discovery spawned a vast prostate screening industry ? nearly a quarter of a million men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the US this year ? and a huge growth in the number of men treated for the condition.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. Its incidence rises with increasing age and it is more common in black males.

Now Professor Stamey says the PSA test merely indicates the size of the prostate and may do more harm than good by encouraging over-treatment.

Many of the cancers detected by it are too small to be clinically meaningful, said The Independent article, and many men may have been unnecessarily treated.

Surgery involves a 70 percent chance of impotence and a five percent chance of severe incontinence (not to mention a much higher risk of less severe incontinence).

But Dr. Thiruvengadasamy told : ?(T)he PSA test is still valid even though it is not 100 percent sensitive.

?Fifteen percent of individuals with benign prostatic diseases, as well as those who have had recent surgery or an endoscopy, could have positive PSA levels.

?But it has to be always interpreted with additional clinical tests like Direct Rectal Examination (DRE) and (TRUS) Trans Rectal Ultra Sound evidence of more specific abnormalities in the prostate.

?The PSA levels also vary among different age groups. The aggressive nature of the cancer is also assessed by a special scoring system known as ?Gleason?s scoring system?.

?But certainly the PSA test could detect both primary and recurrent cancer in the prostate and is useful for follow up.?

Some patients with prostate cancer don?t opt for surgery but go on an ?active surveillance programme? which monitors the disease, which can sometimes be so slow-growing, that it does not harm the patient.

Dr. Thiruvengadasamy said the active surveillance programme is an accepted line of management in some cases where the PSA is positive but the DRE and TRUS studies are negative and have low risk factors.

?My general advice to men is have the PSA screening if they are 60 years and over of age and especially symptomatic with slow stream and frequency of urination.?

Bermuda TB, Cancer and Health Association education officer Rachel Andrade said her organisation ?advises all men to discuss the risk of prostate cancer and prostate cancer screening with their doctors?.