Men's Acceptance of Screening for Prostate Cancer with Prostate-specific Antigen, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and...

A prerequisite before introducing a screening program is that the screening examinations are acceptable to participants.

To evaluate the acceptance and bother of prostate cancer screening examinations.

The randomized population-based GÖTEBORG-2 prostate cancer screening trial invited >37 000 men for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing followed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in case of elevated PSA and prostate biopsy (targeted and/or systematic) if indicated.

Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire and rate the level of bother associated with each examination (PSA, MRI, and prostate biopsy) on a categorical scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1 = "not at all bothersome" and 5 = "very bothersome"), and to rate their willingness to repeat the examinations, by marking an X on a continuous scale ranging from 0 to 10 (0 = "yes, without any hesitation" and 10 = "no, absolutely not"). Wilcoxon signed rank test was used.

Compliance with MRI was 96% (1790/1872), compliance with biopsy was 89% (810/907), and the response rate to the questionnaire was 75% (608/810). Men who underwent all examinations (n = 577) responded that biopsy was more bothersome than PSA test (p < 0.001) and MRI (p < 0.001). High levels of bother (≥4 out of 5) were reported by 2% (12/577) for PSA test, 8% (46/577) for MRI, and 43% (247/577) for biopsy. Men were more willing to repeat MRI than biopsy (p < 0.001), but the difference was small (median 0.2 [interquartile range 0.1-0.6] vs 0.5 [0.1-2.0]).

Biopsies are more bothersome than MRI, but a large majority of men accept to repeat both examinations if necessary. Omitting biopsy for MRI-negative men and shifting to targeted biopsies only will reduce bother for men participating in prostate cancer screening.

We asked men how bothersome they found the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and prostate biopsies. Biopsies were more bothersome than PSA and MRI, but most men were willing to repeat all procedures if necessary.