The value of the PSA test to screen men for prostate cancer has long been debated, and a new study of 162,000 men may not resolve the issue, NewsMax Health says.

The European study, reported Aug. 6 in The Lancet, finds that widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests does reduce deaths from the disease by about one-fifth.

However, due to lingering doubts about whether the benefits of PSA screening outweigh the risks, the study's authors still recommend against routine use of the test at this time.

"PSA screening delivers a substantial reduction in prostate cancer deaths, similar or greater than that reported in screening for breast cancer," study lead author Fritz Schroder, of the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, said in a journal news release.

"However, overdiagnosis occurs in roughly 40 percent of cases detected by screening resulting in a high risk of overtreatment and common side effects such as incontinence and impotence," he added.

In the context of prostate cancer, "overdiagnosis" means that some men may receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer from their PSA test, but the tumor may be so slow-growing that it might not pose a major threat to their health. However, the positive test result may still cause many patients to opt for treatments that entail side effects.

The new study included more than 162,000 men ages 50 to 74 in eight European countries. The men were randomly selected to have PSA screening every two or four years, or no PSA screening.

Compared to men who weren't screened, death rates among men in the screening group were 15 percent lower after nine years, 22 percent lower after 11 years, and 21 percent lower after 13 years, according to the study.

Based on the study findings, Schroder believes that the "time for population-based screening has not arrived. Further research is urgently needed on ways to reduce overdiagnosis preferably by avoiding unnecessary biopsy procedures, and reducing the very large number of men who must be screened, biopsied, and treated to help only a few patients."

Many experts agreed with Schroder's assessment.