USC forum discusses prostate cancer screening

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Two of the nation’s leading experts on prostate cancer are speaking at a University of South Carolina symposium on the pros and cons of screening for the disease.

University spokeswoman Margaret Lamb says Thursday’s event features Dr. Richard Albin, who discovered the prostate specific antigen PSA, and Dr. Oliver Sartor, principal investigator for clinical trials of two of the most recently discovered treatments for prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer among men. Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate has the lowest mortality rate of any common cancer.

However, African-American men in South Carolina have a prostate cancer death rate that is 2.5 times that of European-American men and about 50 percent higher than African Americans in the country as a whole.