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Two large‐scale randomized screening trials, the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovary (PLCO) cancer trial in the USA and the European Randomized Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) trial in Europe are currently under way, aimed at assessing whether screening reduces prostate cancer mortality. Up to the end of 1998, 102,691 men have been randomized to the intervention arm and 115,322 to the control arm (which represents 83% of the target sample size) from 7 European countries and 10 screening centers in the USA. The principal screening method at all centers is determination of serum prostate‐specific antigen (PSA). The PLCO trial and some European centers use also digital rectal examination (DRE) as an ancillary screening test. In the core age group (55–69 years), 3,362 of 32,486 men screened (10%) had a serum PSA concentration of 4 ng/ml or greater, which is 1 cut‐off for biopsy …