Prevalence of Nonrecommended Screening for Prostate and Breast Cancer Varies Across States

High rates of cancer screening in an aging U.S. population raise concern that screening is increasingly being done in patients with life expectancy of <10 years (i.e., screening that is not recommended by most guidelines). Researchers used a national health behavior study to identify 149,514 older patients (age, ≥65); slightly over half (76,419) had received either prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing or mammograms in the prior year. Elders with previous breast or prostate cancer were excluded.

Among screened patients, 23,532 (about one third) had predicted life spans of <10 years based on standardized assessments of comorbidity. State-based rates for nonrecommended PSA testing varied from 11.5% (Hawaii) to 26.9% (Georgia) and, for nonrec…