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?
>> 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 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...
Well, that sure depends on what study you are looking at. This is from the American Cancer Society.... http://acspressroom.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/u-s-panel-says-no-to-psa-screening/. “One study done in several European countries found that PSA screening reduced deaths from prostate cancer by about 20%. Another study done in the United States concluded that PSA screening did no such thing. In fact, in the US study, the deaths from prostate cancer were greater during the period of the study in men who were screened vs. those who were not, but that difference was not found to be statistically significant.”
I don’t think there is another issue in medicine that has so much misinformation surrounding it. There is some important history to this issue that is definitely worth noting.... particularly for men going through a worrying phase of “crap, I’ve just been told that I’ve got prostate cancer. The entire concept of conducting the PSA tests and using the results as a marker for early detection of cancer came about as the results of research conducted by Stanford University School of Medicine professor Dr. Thomas Stamey. In 1987, Dr. Stamey results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and essentially, he showed that ‘increased blood PSA levels could be used to indicate prostate cancer’. So... for almost 20 year there has been this cookie cooker annual test that men over 50 take with all the doctors wagging their heads and murmuring “oh, you really should get this test because early detection is oh so important”. Great.... but what happened in 2004? Well, after doing research for the entire period from 1987 to 2004 on a few thousand prostate tissue samples by urologists at Stanford, Dr. Stamey released a new study where he effectively said “"The PSA era is over in the United States.... this new study raises very serious doubts as to whether ‘a man should even use a PSA test for prostate cancer screening anymore’. These results are in the October, 2004 issue of the Journal of Urology. By the way, Dr Stamey did not say that the PSA test should be abandoned completely.... just that it was not a useful predictor of prostate cancer. The results do indicate whether there is a harmless increase in prostate size i.e. the bigger the prostate, the larger the PSA number.
So there you have it.... the inertia of the complete medical profession continuing to propel this concept that the PSA test has any value at all....even though the author of the work upon which this is based may as well of declared “throw it out!” Let me tell you, I have a lot of respect for Dr Stamey to come out and refute his own findings nearly 20 years later. And how many prostates were unnecessarily removed during this period and at what cost to those people? Well, one can just view it as medicine doing the best it can but sometimes it goes down a wrong road. One last thing, there was another study done a few years ago that I’m sure I could lay my hands on if I had a bit of time.....it showed the results of biopsies of young men in the teens and 20s who had accidentally died and as I recollect, at least 10% of the prostates analyzed had cancer. What’s the conclusion to all this? Virtually all men (certainly by the time they reach the age of 60 or 70) have prostate cancer..... for some it will be obvious (and in a very few cases, it may even require removal) but for the rest it exists and remains relatively harmless. As for being concerned? Well, if all that has to happen is for doctors to just look a little hard to find it, it’s hard to be that concerned about it, no?
Bump to your post no. 8.