ABSTRACT
Prostate Cancer Awareness Week (PCAW) and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial are two ongoing projects attempting through different means to develop PSA demographics and determine the utility of screening for prostate cancer. While patient education is the primary goal of PCAW, a massive database containing demographic information, survey instruments, and blood/urine laboratory values/samples has accumulated over the last 15 years. In the early 1990s, the NIH began funding the PLCO trial designed to determine if screening for various malignancies reduces cause-specific and overall mortality. While we eagerly await end-point information from this trial, several studies have capitalized on the wealth of clinical data currently available. This chapter will describe the history of the two projects and review published data.
