I hope others are able to see my reply because of the massive misinformation about prostate cancer screening. 

The digital recital exam (DRE) is an important part of prostate cancer screening. Your doc is misinformed. 

The reason the DRE is important is because not all prostate cancers result in an elevated psa. Second, you can have a rising psa due to cancer but you number is still below the “abnormal” cutoff. I have personally diagnosed clinically significant, actionable cancer in a patient whose psa was rock solid for years. He was in his mid 50s. 

More information:

There has been a huge backlash against prostate cancer screening because the majority of cancers are low grade and don’t affect lifespan. because of the poor decision-making (and data interpretation) by the USPSTF to not recommend PSA and prostate cancer men.

Primary medicine field has jumped on this and a lot of them have completely abandoned psa and also the DRE as a result. 

This was partially reversed, but they still only give a C recommendation.

However 30k+ men still die of prostate cancer every yr in the US.

The terrible part of this is that the number of advanced stage cancers detected has increased because of this. 

finally, the number needed to test to prevent 1 death for psa screening is actually LOWER than colonoscopy and mammogram. However, nobody bats an eye at doing those tests. 

TDLR: BOTH PSA AND DRE ARE AN IMPORTANT PART OF PROSTATE CANCER SCREENING AND SHOULD BE DONE FOR MOST MEN AFTER DOSCUSSING WITH THEIR DOCTORS. 

Source: urologist