SynthesisBMC family practice2012
Prostate specific antigen testing policy worldwide varies greatly and seems not to be in accordance with guidelines: a systematic review.
Synthesis in BMC family practice, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Prostate Cancer Screening: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices by Medical Doctors in Portugal.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2026Article
- Attitudes Toward and Use of Prostate-Specific Antigen Testing Among Urologists and General Practitioners in Germany: A Survey.Frontiers in oncology · 2021Article
- General practitioners' approaches to prostate-specific antigen testing in the north-east of the Netherlands.BMC family practice · 2020Article
- Early detection of prostate cancer using prostate-specific antigen testing: an empirical evaluation among general practitioners and urologists.Cancer management and research · 2019Article
- [Rates of prostate-specific antigen testing for early detection of prostate cancer: a first comparison of German results with current international data].Der Urologe. Ausg. A · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundProstate specific antigen (PSA) testing is widely used, but guidelines on follow-up are unclear.
methodsWe performed a systematic review of the literature to determine follow-up policy after PSA testing by general practitioners (GPs) and non-urologic hospitalists, the use of a cut-off value for this policy, the reasons for repeating a PSA test after an initial normal result, the existence of a general cut-off value below which a PSA result is considered normal, and the time frame for repeating a test. Data sources. MEDLINE, Embase, PsychInfo and the Cochrane library from January 1950 until May 2011. Study eligibility criteria. Studies describing follow-up policy by GPs or non-urologic hospitalists after a primary PSA test, excluding urologists and patients with prostate cancer. Studies written in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian or Spanish were included. Excluded were studies describing follow-up policy by urologists and follow-up of patients with prostate cancer. The quality of each study was structurally assessed.
resultsFifteen articles met the inclusion criteria. Three studies were of high quality. Follow-up differed greatly both after a normal and an abnormal PSA test result. Only one study described the reasons for not performing follow-up after an abnormal PSA result.
conclusionsBased on the available literature, we cannot adequately assess physicians' follow-up policy after a primary PSA test. Follow-up after a normal or raised PSA test by GPs and non-urologic hospitalists seems to a large extent not in accordance with the guidelines.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.