Total PSA

Clinical significance
PSA is a protein belonging to the kallikrein family and is made exclusively in the prostate; because of this high tissue specificity, PSA is used not only in surveillance for recurrence but also in prostate cancer screening. Unfortunately, in screening, its diagnostic specificity for prostate cancer is poor, since PSA also rises in benign conditions such as benign prostatic hypertrophy and prostatitis; on the other hand, its diagnostic sensitivity is sufficiently high. To improve the diagnostic specificity of PSA, free PSA is also measured when this limit is exceeded. In prostate cancer screening, PSA results must never be assessed separately from the clinical urological examination.