Gerald L. Andriole, Jr., MD, presented “Considerations to Improve Screening for Prostate Cancer” for the Grand Rounds in Urology audience in December 2021.
How to cite: Andriole, Gerald L. “Considerations to Improve Screening for Prostate Cancer.” December 2021. Accessed Jan 2025. https://grandroundsinurology.com/considerations-to-improve-screening-for-prostate-cancer/
Considerations to Improve Screening for Prostate Cancer
Gerald L. Andriole, Jr., MD, outgoing Robert K. Royce Distinguished Professor and Chief of Urologic Surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the Siteman Cancer Center, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and incoming Director of Urology in the National Capital Region at the Brady Urologic Institute at Johns Hopkins University, reviews current guidelines for prostate cancer screening and considers how screening can be improved. After an introduction from E. David Crawford, Editor-in-Chief of Grand Rounds in Urology and Professor of Urology at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Andriole summarizes the AUA, EAU, and NCCN prostate cancer screening guidelines, highlighting the NCCN’s recommendation that men get an early-in-life PSA test to obtain a baseline, and interrogating the validity of the age cut-offs for testing in the AUA and EAU guidelines. He then proposes a series of concepts to improve screening, starting with recommendations on how to better identify which men are at above average risk. Dr. Andriole particularly emphasizes the utility of polygenomic risk scores, which have a high negative predictive value and can focus attention on which patients need to be further screened. He suggests that another key way to improve screening is to reduce confusion about the PSA test among patients and primary care providers by setting a cut-point of 1-1.5 as a threshold for referral to a urologist. Dr. Andriole then considers how to identify patients with clinically-significant prostate cancer earlier, focusing on the need for better biopsies. He also notes the importance of reducing unnecessary repeat and initial biopsies and suggests potentially using biomarkers, MRI, and PSMA-PET to decide whether a biopsy is necessary. After concluding his talk, Dr. Andriole further discusses polygenic risk score, the pros and cons of multiparametric MRI, the benefits of micro-ultrasound, transrectal versus transperineal biopsy, and the future of screening with Dr. Crawford.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gerald L. Andriole, Jr., MD, is Chief Medical Officer of Prostatype
Genomics. He retired in June 2023 from Johns Hopkins University
where he was Professor and Director of Urology in the National Capital
Region. Previously, he had been the Royce Distinguished Professor and
Chief of Urologic Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis for
over 20 years.
Dr. Andriole participated in the 5-year accelerated medical program at
Penn State University and Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA.
He trained in surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of
Rochester, NY and completed urology residency at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. He served a
fellowship in Urologic Oncology at the National Cancer Institute of NIH
in Bethesda, Maryland prior to joining the faculty at Washington
University.
Dr. Andriole has significant expertise in prostate cancer screening and
prevention. He was continuously funded by NIH from 1993 and has
contributed over 450 peer-reviewed publications (H-index of 110). He
chaired the Prostate Committee of NCI’s PLCO Cancer Screening Trial
and led the international REDUCE Prostate Cancer Chemoprevention
Trial. He also chaired the Prostate Committee of the Society of Urologic
Oncology Clinical Trials Consortium.
Dr. Andriole is an elected member of the American Surgical
Association, American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, and the
Clinical Society of Genitourinary Surgeons. He received the
Outstanding Achievement Award from the Urologic Oncology Branch
of NCI, the Distinguished Clinician Award from Washington University,
the Distinguished Alumni Award from Jefferson Medical College and
the Williams Award for Prostate Cancer Research Excellence from the
American Urologic Association Urology Care Foundation.
