9-10-2008
If you're a man taking certain pain relievers, including ibuprofen and aspirin, this story could affect you.
Researchers say the pain medications can lower the levels of a protein doctors use to screen for prostate cancer.
Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center looked at more than 13- hundred men age 40 and up.
They found those who took a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug nearly every day had a prostate specific antigen, or PSA, level ten percent lower than those who took nothing.
Scientists believe those medications may hide a man's risk of getting prostate cancer by lowering the PSA levels while the risk remains unchanged.
Prostate cancer is the sixth mostly deadly form in men, with about a quarter of a million deaths a year.