Men's Health Network calls on Congress to ensure that healthcare reform does not override the prostate cancer testing benefit currently required of insurance companies in 37 states.
Prostate cancer screening is particularly important for those segments of the population and individuals who are identifiable as high risk, including African American men and men who have a family history of prostate cancer. The American Urological Association currently recommends that men age 40 consider a "baseline" prostate cancer test.
"My husband, the Late Congressman Dean Gallo, did not have the benefit of the PSA as a prostate cancer screening method in 1991. Therefore, in 1992 he was diagnosed with late stage prostate cancer. It was stage 4 and he had a PSA of 883. If the PSA test was available my husband would not have died from this disease. A complete prostate cancer exam, including the DRE and PSA, identifies cancers while they can still be treated and should be made available to all men aged 40 and above," shared Betty Gallo, Co-Founder of Women Against Prostate Cancer.
Recent changes in national guidelines for mammography screenings from the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) have caused a flurry of discussion around the role of the Task Force. Men's Health Network has monitored their recommendations closely for many years and is concerned that the USPSTF does not recommend prostate cancer testing even while the use of the DRE and PSA continues to save lives.