According to a new study by urologists in WA, prostate cancers in Australia are largely being under-diagnosed because of the country's somewhat conservative approach to PSA testing. The study - published in the online edition of the journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases - revealed that the diagnosis of prostate cancer in Australian men is `too late' mostly due to the GPs practice of delaying the reference of the patients for biopsies.

Urologist Tom Shannon and co-authors of the study noted that analysis of biopsy samples from over 5000 men indicated that Australian men had almost 1.6 times higher rates of high-grade tumours, vis-a-vis their US counterparts, during the period from 1998 to 2004.

The study, which showed a low rate of "insignificant" cancers, revealed that 60 percent rate of high grade tumours on biopsy reported in WA is almost two-fold more than that witnessed in the American men, during the mentioned period, because of the reason that the US had implemented a more forceful early screening practice based on PSA testing.

Incidentally, the findings of the new study are contrary to a popular belief that many men were being over-treated for prostate cancer - more so after last year's contentious recommendation by the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand that the threshold age of PSA testing be reduced to men in the 40s, rather than men in the 50s.