Posted on 02/01/2005 7:45:22 AM PST by neverdem
My first instinct is to wonder who on the advisory board owns how much stock in which companies that do these scans.
We got sold all this crap by a fast talking salesman and now we got to pay for it. OK, heart scans for anyone who ever smoked a cigarette and colonoscopies for anyone who ever ate a hamburger. Hire some grad students at minimum wage to publish a "study."
Me too, or a thought much like it - who gets money from this. It is hard for me to recommend to a 79 yr old man to go get this test because he may have a 6% higher risk to die of this. Chances are there he has much higher risks than that of dying of many other things. After all, he is 79!
After age 75 the scans are not recommended, due to declining longevity expectations.
It's a $300 ultrasound test. You can get one at any doctor's office or clinic anywhere in the US. Don't know many doctor's offices that are public companies, sorry.
My father died from this at age 52. He had a burning pain in the chest and went to the ER. Heart was beating normally, but they admitted him for observation. He passed away in his sleep that night and only an autopsy revealed the aneurism. Grandfather also passed away in his 50's from unkown causes. Both drank heavily and smoked like chimneys. If either has this test, their lives may have been saved. I'm in my 30's and paid for the test. This gives me some peace of mind and a baseline for future testing.
There's all sorts of ways to make money off of unnecessary medical tests. That's not much of a refutation... someone has to sell/maintain the machines, and analyze the data, at a minimum.
An aneurysm. Isn't that what John Ritter died of? Anyone know?
Actually at age 79, the smoker has almost an 8% risk, versus the nonsmoker's 2.5% risk. That's a 220% higher risk...
The big problem I have with the article is that about 1 in 1,000 male smokers (ex-smokers) die each year from this, yet the study presumes to save one life for each 500 patients screened over a 5 year period; seems like they expect to save more lives that originally being lost.
Thank you for this article. I am going to send it to my father.
My father smokes and looks like hell. I hadn't seen him in 25 years, and when I saw him again last summer he looked like a small old man and he is only 61. He also has deep vein thrombosis from flying and smoking and he knows that a clot can go into his lungs and kill him. I so wish he would quit smoking. Both of his parents died from smoking.
My mother stopped smoking last year when they took out one of her lungs due to cancer.
BUMP FOR LATER REPLY, I HAVE TO GO OUT, but, My husband just had two operations for this. I have some information to share.
It depends on how you want to skew the numbers. If you want to go for the emotional impact, you take the 2.5% as the basis. But if you look at it in reality, you see that 2.5 men out of 100 will die from it compared to 8 out of 100. The difference is 5.5%. (I said 6% before because I just glanced at the graph and couldn't remember the exact height of the bar).
Too many people who have an agenda do the same type of number crunching you do. I am surprised that they don't look at the first group and say there is a 1000% increase. (Eyeballing of about .1% compared to 1%)
And to be honest, there just isn't that much difference between 2.5% and 8%. If it were 2% compared to 30% oreven 15, then that might be worth a lifting of an eyebrow. But for the oldest group they recommend - it is about only a 3% higher risk - from about 1 in 100 to about 4 in 100. I don't know if that is statiscally significant. It wouldn't seem that it is - but I never paid much attention to the statistics I had to take. But still, it seems very small percentage of risk compared to the amount of time and money required by the screenings but more for the surgeries - all of which eventually come out of other people's pockets - either taxes or higher premiums. And we haven't even mentioned the errors involved in the screening process that may produce false results.
Because one can use correct data to assert something that does not follow. Take global warming or the endless quest for a "gay gene" as a couple of examples.
That's way statistically significant. And the odds aren't for dying, they're for having a 3cm size or larger aneurysm of this sort. For a cheap $300 you can find out if you have a condition that'll eventually abruptly kill you. And if you're a 60 year old former smoker the chances are 1 in 16 that you do. When I hit the age, I'll fork over the $300. Maybe you don't fit the category. Or maybe peace of mind isn't worth it to you. C'est la vie.
I don't think you really understand ultrasounds and aneurysms.
My husband just had two surgeries for this, but I am leaving soon and can't post much longer. I would like to share our experience so it will take awhile to post. Will do this when I come back. We learned a lot.
"Some of us think the long-term benefits of grafts are not proven," said Dr. Lederle, an internist who is directing one of the clinical trials and takes no money from the industry. But grafts, he said, are a huge market, widely promoted. "This has created tension in the field," he added. Dr. Calonge of the task force said the question for insurers was going to be whether to pay for the screening. He knows that world well, he says, because until a few years ago he was the chief of preventive medicine for the Kaiser Permanente health care company in Colorado and had to decide whether new tests and services should be provided.
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