More prostate cancer cases diagnosed at Stage 4 in recent years, study finds

More cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed at Stage 4 in recent years compared with about a decade earlier, a development that experts behind a new study suggest could be linked with official recommendations discouraging the use of a hotly debated screening test.

The prostate-specific antigen test is a simple blood test that can serve as an early warning signal of cancer in men with no symptoms. But the test also has risks: It can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment of slow-growing prostate tumours that might never have caused harm had they remained undiscovered.

For that reason, a national task force in the United States recommended against screening with the PSA test in 2012. Two years later, a Canadian task force, which had never endorsed the test for screening, followed suit.