Are age-specific reference ranges for prostate specific antigen population specific?

Background: At present PSA is Considered to be the leading screening test for prostate cancer. We determined whether in men 60 to 79 year old with a serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) within age specific PSA reference ranges prostate biopsy could be safely eliminated.

Methods: We retrospectively analysed all 60-79 year old men who had undergone radical perineal prostatectomy (RPP) for prostate cancer (CaP) at our institution. All patients had undergone prostate biopsy following an abnormal rectal examination and/or PSA greater than 4.0 ng/ml. We compared our results using the standard reference range of 0 to 4.0 ng/ml with those we had obtained using the age specific PSA reference ranges of Oesterling et al.

Results: 204 men between 60-69 years and 67 men between 70-76 years had undergone RPP for CaP. Applying age specific PSA reference ranges 56 CaP would have been overlooked. Of those 46% had a favourable histology. Taken together 54% of the cancers overlooked had an unfavourable histology.

Conclusions: In contrast to previous reports of unfavourable histological characteristics in only 5-24% of missed cancers, applying age specific PSA reference ranges, 54% of missed cancers in our patients exhibited an unfavourable histology. We therefore conclude that age specific PSA reference ranges did not safely eliminate the need for prostate biopsy in our study population.