Age-specific percentile-based prostate-specific antigen cutoff values predict the risk of prostate cancer: A single...

Testing for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is often recommended for men with a potential risk of prostate cancer (PCa) before requiring advanced examination. However, the best PSA cutoff value remains controversial.

We compared the predictive performance of age-specific percentile-based PSA thresholds with a conventional cutoff of >4 ng/mL for the risk of PCa.

We included men who received PSA measurements between 2003 and 2017 in a medical center in Taiwan. Logistic regression modeling was used to assess the association between age-specific percentile-based PSA thresholds and PCa risk in age subgroups. We further applied C-statistic and decision curve analysis to compare the predictive performance of age-specific percentile-based PSA with that of a conventional cutoff PSA.

We identified 626 patients with PCa and 40 836 patients without PCa. The slope of PSA in patients >60-year-old was almost 3 times that of those <60-year-old (0.713 vs 0.259). The risk effect sizes of the 75th percentile PSA cutoff (<60-year-old: 2.19; 60-70-year-old: 4.36; >70-year-old: 5.84 ng/mL) were comparable to those observed based on the conventional cutoff in all age groups. However, the discrimination performance of the 75th percentile PSA cutoff was better than that of the conventional cutoff among patients aged <60-year-old (C-statistic, 0.783 vs. 0.729, p < 0.05). The 75th percentile cutoffs also correctly identified an additional 2 patients with PCa for every 100 patients with PSA screening at the threshold probability of 20%.

Our data support the use of the 75th percentile PSA cutoff to facilitate individualized risk assessment, particularly for patients aged <60-year-old.