Posted on 10/13/2011 11:48:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
Whenever I have a medical appointment, my wife inquires, "What did the doctor say?" I always give the same answer: "She said I'm going to die." Not because I have some fatal illness, but because life is a terminal condition.
Americans might keep that fact in mind in considering the recent news made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. It recently recommended against routine screening of healthy men for prostate cancer, on two grounds: The test doesn't save lives, on balance, and the treatments are usually worse than the disease.
Everyone who gets prostate cancer will die. But usually not from prostate cancer.
There are lessons in the task force report, both for individuals and for institutions that pay for screening of this sort. But chances are, those lessons will be ignored. In the American health care system, the pressures to do something, useful or not, are more powerful than the pressures to do nothing.
Prevention is a totem of modern medicine. Under his health care reform, President Barack Obama says, insurance companies will have to provide free mammograms and colonoscopies because "it saves money, and it saves lives." He stuck to this position even after this same Preventive Services Task Force came out against routine mammography for women under 50.
This is one of those conditions where ignorance can truly be bliss. Most men who live long enough will develop cancer of the prostate. And for most of them, it will be effectively harmless.
The idea of a harmless cancer may be hard to grasp. Typically, though, prostate cancer grows very slowly and has no symptoms, and by the time it gets around to killing you, you're already dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Despite medical advances, humans still face a 100% mortality rate.
Really, really good news for those of us who are rubber glove phobic.
You’re right.
I just checked the most recent mortality table and it shows that the mortality rate is still hovering around 100%.
Ask the men who have died from it how much they might have like to have had regular screenings...it kills as many as breast cancer does....
Oh come on! This has to be aimed at cutting health expenditures due to Obamacare.
My father (who’s since passed away) had “ignored” getting any sort of medical check-ups (he hated hospitals) and went to the doctor because he was “tired” and a “little under the weather”. The doctor told him he had prostate cancer—and it was so advanced that it had made it’s way into his lungs.
Get check-ups, if not every year at least every other year.
My anecdotal evidence is to the contrary. Everyone I know who had surgery is still healthy, without impotence or incontinence, while the three I knew whose docs said, “Let’s wait and see.” are dead, within two years of diagnosis..
I however am not as smart as these researchers with their big doctor brains, like I wasn’t as smart as the Enron boys or the Ivy-Leaguers who run the government.
The latest stats show a 40% lower death rate from prostate cancer for those men who have been PSA screened. The producers of this “report” are the same who last year told MDs not to offer mammograms to women under 50. Do you think their goal might be based on the British model?
>> good news for those of us who are rubber glove phobic <<
You’ve got it exactly backwards. The “rubber glove” exam will become EVEN MORE important in the absence of the PSA test.
“The test doesn’t save lives, on balance, and the treatments are usually worse than the disease.”
Can’t agree with this. Last year I was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. If you define saving lives by prolonging my life then I believe my life was saved. I selected proton radiation therapy to treat my tumor. Treated with success and with almost no downside to the treatment. The worse part of the treatment was loose stools.
Exactly ...I have seen rather young men,, (60’s) suffer and die from prostrate cancer.. A test never hurts..THEN make an informed decision
Yes, like my best friend's husband(never had a prostate exam) who began suffering intestinal symptoms and shortness of breath, only to find he had prostate cancer which had metastasized to the intestines. Granted, that's not the typical scenario, and I suspect he had at least some vague symptoms before that onslaught. Over four years later he is in remission, but as a physician he has had access to the best specialists and treatments.
How old was your dad? Did they treat it? How long did he live?
Uh..no...this is the good news and it's what my own family doctor told me.
This is one of those conditions where ignorance can truly be bliss. Most men who live long enough will develop cancer of the prostate. And for most of them, it will be effectively harmless. The idea of a harmless cancer may be hard to grasp. Typically, though, prostate cancer grows very slowly and has no symptoms, and by the time it gets around to killing you, you're already dead
Either test is unnecessary unless you want to be super-safe.
>> The producers of this “report” are the same who last year told MDs not to offer mammograms to women under 50. <<
Not only that:
As I understand the matter, there was not a single urologist on the panel!
It’s really an outrageous recommendation. Just because SOME patients may panic, and just because SOME doctors may push for unnecessary surgery, there’s absolutely no justice in denying the basic test information to the rest of us — whether we are patients or MD’s.
My case is a good example of benefit from the PSA test. I had a dramatic year-to-year increase in PSA. My internist said not to worry, because I might have an infection. The urologist to whom he referred me said the same. So they prescribed a six-week course of antibiotics, and I was cured.
By the way, I had asked the urologist if I really needed the antibiotics. Why be concerned about a prostate infection? Because, he said, it might spread to other parts of the genito-urinary system and cause permanent damage. Case closed. I willingly took the inexpensive and painless treatment, and I’m very glad I did!
I meant to add that my friend’s husband wasn’t expected to survive beyond the 2 year mark, even with treatment. He is fortunate, indeed, and I hope he lives to see his children finish college, marry, and make him a grandfather.
I think its what rationing will look like.
“oh...we have determined that its just not necessary to do this that or the other....”
Make up policies as you go along.
They did it before with things like the weight charts and I think it was blood sugar...all of a sudden you had more “obese” people and type 2 diabetics: a boom in the pharmaceutical markets. There was no real reason to change the weight charts or to make acceptable blood sugar levels go from 120 to 100...or what ever they were...
This is similar but used in a way to keep people from using the system resources. Thats just my opinion.
i can hardly wait for the whole enchilada to come along...
Prostate cancer is a real sore spot with me...
I too watched several associates suffer and die from it. When I see “them” want to take away the tools to help fight it, I get a bit upset. And unfairly or not, even more upset when I see NFL linemen forced to prance around in pink for a similar disease that kills only slightly more.
But thats just me.
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