2009 PSA Testing Guidelines from AUA

PSA testing has become one of the most controversial issues in health. Many men routinely undergo the blood test to try to spot prostate cancer early. There's no question the screening can do that, but many doctors have begun to challenge routine PSA testing because it often leads to unnecessary biopsies and treatment for a cancer that may never be life-threatening. Prostate cancer is often so slow growing that it never actually causes problems. Two major studies released last month fueled doubts about PSA testing when they failed to find clear evidence it reduced the chances of dying from prostate cancer.

But the American Urological Association begs to differ in its updated recommendations on PSA testing released Monday. The guidelines say PSA testing can be very useful in spotting cancer early and helping men and their doctors make decisions. The guidelines lower the age that it says doctors should offer it to men from 50 to 40.

The key, the guidelines say, is how the results are used. For example, the other big change the guidelines recommend is how the results are interpreted. Instead of doing a biopsy simply when the PSA level goes above a certain level, the guidelines say the PSA "velocity" is more important. That's how fast the PSA level is rising. If a man's PSA rises very quickly over a short period of time, the guidelines say, that's when a biopsy may be necessary.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) is reporting that cases of the human swine influenza virus have now been reported in California, Texas, Kansas, New York, and Ohio. read more...

Opening Doors Exhibit

This traveling exhibit celebrates the contributions of four African-American academic surgeons through contemporary and historical images. On display until April 26th; Mezzanine Level

Tools to Help with the NIH Public Access Policy

Trying to track publications for the NIH Public Access Policy? The University of Wisconsin - Madison has created instructions on how to use EndNote and RefWorks to assist in this process.

EndNote
Use EndNote to keep track of the manuscripts submitted to PubMed Central (PMC). Create a separate PMC Manuscripts EndNote Library for your manuscripts. Set up this special library as instructed on the PDF linked above. When you submit the manuscript to NIH, add the manuscript reference and the NIHMSID number to this library. When the PMCID number is issued, add this number to the EndNote reference record. Use the special NIH-PMCID output style to cite these references in future NIH grant progress reports and applications.

RefWorks
Use RefWorks to keep track of the manuscripts submitted to PubMed Central (PMC). Create a separate PMC Manuscripts RefWorks Library for your manuscripts. Set up this special library as instructed below. When you submit the manuscript to NIH, add the manuscript reference and the NIHMSID number to this library. When the PMCID number is issued, add this number to the RefWorks reference record. Use the special NIH-PMCID output style to cite these references in future NIH grant progress reports and applications.

NEW! RefWorks added PubMed (PMID) and PubMed Central (PMCID) fields to every reference type. Refworks modified their NLM PubMed import filter for to place these two ID fields in their respective RefWorks fields.