Medical field has prostate anxiety.

Byline: Judy Peres

Sep. 29--When the 39-foot screening van pulls into a shopping mall near you, proclaiming its "Drive Against Prostate Cancer," the theme is familiar: Get tested; it could save your life.

The Airstream Land Yacht XL, skippered by the National Prostate Cancer Coalition, criss-crosses the country, offering free screening tests to about 10,000 men each year.

It's part of a campaign that has supporters wearing blue "Do It for Dad" wristbands to raise awareness of a disease that hits 232,000 U.S. men a year and kills 30,000.

Like groups that have persuaded millions of women to get mammograms in hopes of finding breast cancer before it can be felt, prostate cancer organizations focus on the importance of screening tests: a blood test for PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, usually coupled with a physical examination of the prostate gland.

But unlike mammography, which has been proved in clinical trials to trim deaths from breast cancer, critics say there's no solid evidence PSA screening saves lives.

Until that evidence is in, the skeptics say, men should weigh the uncertain benefit of screening against the potential costs down the line--including impotence and incontinence.

"It's wrong to be persuading men to be tested, since we don't know that the benefits [of screening] outweigh the harms," said…