If you have prostate cancer symptoms, the most effective means of detecting prostate cancer is through a screening, which involves a digital rectal exam and a PSA test, which checks the amount of prostate-specific antigen in patients’ blood.
The blood test, which is believed to detect a significant majority of prostate cancers and has the highest validity of a cancer screening to date, looks for increased levels of the prostate-specific antigen, a protein secreted by the prostate into the bloodstream. Elevated levels of the antigen may indicate the presence of prostate cancer. If cancer is suspected, a prostate biopsy will be performed. By removing a tissue sample from the tumor and examining it through a prostate biopsy, doctors can confirm or rule out a diagnosis of cancer and determine whether the disease has spread to other organs.
