Quite frankly I find the PSA test far more preferable than the other test done. I'm used to shots I get six shots every six weeks and three shots every three for allergies. But I get both exams for Prostate cancer. Cancers can be slow growing or aggressive and it requires monitoring once detected or suspected.
If I had to have cancer and had a pick of which one I would pick Thyroid Cancer as it is the slowest growing and easiest to fully eradicate. Thanks to blood work, and digital exam of the glands, along with an ultrasound, if a mass or enlargement is noted cancer can be headed off early with a near 100% survival rate.
In that respect there is aggressive Thyroid cancer and the slow growing type. My wife had a goiter for several years our doctor was watching it. He did an ultrasound every year. Two years ago the radiologist must have saw something he didn't like because an biopsy was ordered. It was cancer and it likely had left the area. It was detected in July and her Thyroid removed in about November. She had the I131 in Jan or Feb. The Endocrinologist told her in 20 years time he had only seen one patient die from it and that patient waited too long to see a doctor to start with. This week she is undergoing a follow up scan to see if any Thyroid remains.
I do know this much about Prostate Cancer. If I had it and it had spread I know which route I would likely go as far as treatment and the doctor would not be operating on the Prostate itself. That surgery can leave a person incontinent. The more sure way if it had spread is to simply starve it to death from it's food source. Remission can last up to a decade and the ill effects of prostate removal avoided. That was the route my dad went. Prostate Cancer must have Testosterone to feed on. Radical surgery? Yea, but not as many ill effects as Prostate removal.
In all cancers as far as I know only a biopsy can diagnose it for certain and as to the type and it's aggressiveness. PSA can show the aggressiveness or red flag hey something is out of whack here. A good indicator would be three digit readings instead of say a reading of 10. That would definitely warrant a biopsy IMO. I would think any doctor and patient would want to know as much.
Prostate Cancer wasn't as much of an issue before because most men generally didn't live long enough to die from it and that has changed due to advances in medicine.
Prostate cancer screenings.
Physicians conduct the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening to detect prostate cancer early and allow for early treatment. It is commonly assumed that early detection saves lives.
But two large clinical trials show no overall benefit from mass screening for prostate cancer. And the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends against PSA-based screening, finding that for every 1,000 men screened, at most 1 man avoids prostate cancer.
Certainly, the thought of saving one human life is reason enough to give such an exam, right? Not so fast. Of that same 1,000-man sample, up to 120 men walk away with e a false-positive test result – wrongly indicating the presence of cancer.
A positive PSA test is typically followed by a biopsy to confirm the presence of cancer with a major risk of a complication.
And even when the set of tests rightly identifies a patient with cancer, rarely does the cancer lead to health problems.
Unfortunately, in most cases, doctors can’t differentiate between cancer that will become harmful and cancer that won’t. So, when tests suggest the presence of prostate cancer, most men pursue treatment.
The most common treatment options are surgery, radiation therapy, hormone therapy and chemotherapy. Each option exposes men to possible surgical complications, along with erectile dysfunction and incontinence.
All of this might be worth it if the outcome was an increased cure rate. But that has never been shown. Instead, the impact on survival and life expectancy remains unchanged based on the largest research studies.
Once again, more is not better.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/06/think-care-better-us.html