The serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level varies widely among different races and increases with age. In this study, we evaluated the variation in serum PSA levels in a multicenter study population to determine a standard age-specific PSA reference range for Korean men without clinically evident prostate cancer.

We retrospectively analyzed 120,439 Korean men, ranging in age from 30 to 79 years, whose serum PSA levels were measured at one of eight referral hospitals from November 1998 to July 2005.

Our recommended age-specific reference ranges (95th percentile) of serum PSA levels for Korean men were 0.32 to 1.88 ng/mL for men 30 to 39 years, 0.30 to 1.92 ng/mL for men 40 to 49 years, 0.30 to 2.37 ng/mL for men 50 to 59 years, 0.31 to 3.56 ng/mL for men 60 to 69 years, and 0.30 to 5.19 ng/mL for men 70 to 79 years old. The serum PSA level increased annually, corresponding to an increase of 0.0023 ng/mL for men in their 40s, 0.0175 ng/mL for men in their 50s, 0.0499 ng/mL for men in their 60s, and 0.0398 ng/mL for men in their 70s, with a steep increase for men in their 50s and the largest increase in men older than 60 years.

The results of our study have shown that the age-specific reference ranges (95th percentile) for serum PSA levels in Korean men are lower than those for white men. Our newly proposed age-specific reference ranges from this multicenter study will be more valuable in the interpretation of PSA data for Korean men.