This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Many older men are tested each year for cancer of the prostategland. This organ is part of the male reproductive system. One testmeasures levels in the blood of a protein known as P.S.A. P.S.A. isprostate-specific antigen. Most men with prostate cancer haveincreased levels of this protein.

The test results come back from the laboratory as a number.Doctors usually consider the results normal if the P.S.A. level isbelow four. But a new study raises questions. The study foundprostate cancer in fifteen percent of older men with P.S.A. levelsbelow four. But the researchers also found that most of thesecancers were not especially dangerous. The risk of prostate cancerincreased as the P.S.A. levels got higher.

A result above ten is considered high. But a high P.S.A. leveldoes not always mean that a man has cancer. There could be aninfection or an enlarged prostate. This is a common problem in oldermen.

The study involved almost three-thousand men. They were agessixty-two to ninety-one. Ian Thompson of the Texas Health ScienceCenter at San Antonio led the study. The results appeared in the NewEngland Journal of Medicine.

Doctors often perform biopsies on men with increased P.S.A.levels. They cut a small amount of tissue from the prostate to lookfor cancer. If cancer is found, then the question arises of what todo next.

Doctors must decide how aggressive the cancer is. Non-aggressiveprostate cancers usually grow slowly. They do not normally spread toother organs.

Researchers say almost thirty percent of men in their thirtiesand forties have prostate cancer but do not know it. By theirsixties and seventies, however, two out of three men may haveprostate cancer.

Some doctors advise men with non-aggressive prostate cancer todelay treatment. But, in the United States, almost thirty-thousandmen per year die of prostate cancer. So most patients elect to havetreatment. This often means an operation to remove the prostate.

Last December, Secretary of State Colin Powell had an operationin which doctors removed his prostate because of cancer. SenatorJohn Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, had the sameexperience early last year.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by JerilynWatson.