Screening could miss early-stage prostate cancer in transgender women Estrogen supplements can cause PSA levels to be 50 times lower in transgender women than cisgender men This means guidelines used in PSA tests could miss early prostate cancers MONDAY, July 1, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Current screening standards could miss early-stage prostate cancer in transgender women, a new study warns. Prostate cancer tests look for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a protein produced by the small gland. Blood levels of PSA tend to be elevated in people with prostate cancer.
But the estrogen that many transgender women take as part of their gender-affirming care “drastically lowers PSA levels, which could mean the threshold we are using as ‘normal’ is too high to detect early-stage cancer in these patients,” said senior researcher , chair of prostate cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Current guidelines hold that PSA levels above 4 nanograms per milliliter of blood suggest cancer could be present. At those levels, a prostate can be ordered to check for cancer.
For this study, published June 26 in the , researchers analyzed the Veterans Health Administration medical records of 210 transgender women without prostate cancer who were taking estrogen. “We found that the median PSA value, the midpoint in the range of participants, was 0.02 ng/mL, which is fiftyfold lower than PSA values reported in similar-aged cisgender men,” said lead researcher , a urology re.
