Prostate cancer: should PSA screening be routine?

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men behind skin cancer. There are expected to be 220,800 new cases diagnosed in the US this year. Although this number is high, death rates from prostate cancer are relatively low. Almost 100% of men diagnosed with the disease will survive 5 years or more - a rate many medical professionals attribute to prostate-specific antigen testing.

Many medical professionals believe the improvement in death rates from prostate cancer since the 1990s is down to the introduction of PSA testing.

The US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) first approved prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing to screen asymptomatic men for prostate cancer in the early 1990s. In the decade prior to this approval, 5-year survival rates from the cancer stood at around 70-75%. By 1998, it had increased to 98.2%.

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Common gene variant may protect against Alzheimer's

A common gene variant associated with long life also improves learning and memory, according to a team of researchers at the Gladstone Institutes and University of California, San Francisco.

The KL gene that produces the protein klotho - named after a Greek "Fate" who is said to spin the thread of life - was first discovered in 1997. About 20% of the population carry a variant of this gene called KL-VS. This variant is known to reduce age-related cardiovascular disease. But this is the first time that KL-VS has been linked to improved cognition.

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