Recent data highlight importance of screening for prostate cancer in transgender women

In this video, Matthew Loria shares the take-home message from the recent Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases paper, “Incidence of prostate cancer in transgender women in the US: a large database analysis.” Loria is an MD student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Transcription:

What is the take-home message for the practicing urologist?

I think the main takeaway from this study is that prostate cancer is not as rare in trans women as we think it is, and that we really need to be giving this population the time that they deserve, and that they should be screened equally to their cis male counterparts. Their gender identity and expression should not really be affecting how we're treating their care, even though, it seems like potentially they are at a lower risk. But honestly, there are probably so many confounding variables: younger age, access to health care and screenings. And so we just need to make sure that all of our practicing urologists are screening all of their patients, regardless of their sex or gender identity. Because I think we just don't know enough as this population ages, that we want to make sure that we're taking care of them, and we want to make sure that they're getting the best care possible.

Is there anything you would like to add?

As a group, we're very interested in all forms of LGBTQ health research, not specifically just urology; we're doing a wide area of things. So I encourage any physicians that see this interview to reach out to us about this paper, about anything else. We're really happy to just work with individuals in the field that are doing this type of research to really progress it, because there is a dearth of a lot of this type of research and for a population that desperately needs this to be done and needs scientific literature, especially in this current political climate, to back the foundation and science behind a lot of this, we're really happy and excited to collaborate with anybody who is interested in doing this type of work.

This transcription was edited for clarity.