What is a PSA test?

The PSA test is a blood test that measures the amount of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in your blood. It can help to diagnose prostate cancer and other prostate problems. When you have a PSA test, your doctor or nurse takes a sample of your blood and sends this off to a laboratory to check the amount of PSA. This is usually done at your local GP service.

What do we already know?

The prostate is an organ in the pelvis. It is found in people registered male at birth. This can include cisgender men, transgender women, and non-binary people. 

Did you know? The prostate is not removed during gender affirming vaginoplasty.

Anyone with a prostate can get prostate cancer. This is why it is important for us to establish ways to support transgender and non-binary people who develop the disease.

There are many reasons why a person’s PSA level may be raised that are not related to prostate cancer. These include:

• Ageing
• Urine infections
• Infection of the prostate gland
• Inflammation of the prostate gland
• Recent sexual activity
• Vigorous exercise such as cycling.

The PSA test is not a perfect test, but it does detect most cases of prostate cancer and is the best screening method for prostate cancer that we currently have in primary care.

In some cases, prostate cancer may be present but not life-threatening. In these cases, people will be carefully monitored and only receive treatment if the cancer starts to become dangerous. 

Research tells us that transgender women and non-binary people on feminising gender-affirming hormones have a lower risk of prostate cancer. We think this is because of the lower amounts of testosterone in the body, but more work is needed to confirm this.

Whilst a lower risk of prostate cancer is welcome, it unfortunately does not protect against all forms of prostate cancer and certain more aggressive types of the disease may still pose a risk. This is why TransPRIDE is trying to improve the data we have on transgender and non-binary PSA levels so that we can reduce the risk of any delays to your prostate care.