Last Updated: 2003-08-04 14:29:17 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - African American men with prostate cancer are about half as likely to have an annual prostate specific antigen (PSA) test as their white counterparts, researchers report.

The researchers stress that here is no information to connect follow-up PSA testing with improved survival. However, they do suggest that this "may be one additional factor contributing to the unexplained gap in mortality rates, which are nearly twice as high among African American men compared with Caucasian men."

Dr. Ruth D. Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, and associates studied data from a group of 658 Connecticut men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer during a period of just over a year. They were followed for an average of nearly 7 years.

The researchers report in the journal Cancer that forty-five percent of patients were tested at least once per year and sixty-nine percent were tested at least once every 2 years.

However, African American men were half as likely as white men to have annual testing.

Dr. Etzioni also told Reuters Health that "healthcare providers should be aware that racial disparities exist in this area, and that additional effort is needed to ensure equal access to PSA surveillance after diagnosis."