Japanese Urological Association guidelines on prostate-specific antigen-based screening for prostate cancer and the ongoing cluster cohort study in Japan.

The exposure rate of screening for prostate cancer using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in Japan is still very low compared with that in the USA or Western Europe. The mortality rate of prostate cancer will increase in the future and in 2020 it will be 2.8 times higher than in 2000. Therefore, there is an urgent need to determine the best available countermeasures to decrease the rate of prostate cancer death.