More prostate cancer

[Larry]

I have avoided opening this thread because with my own recent medical issues i dreaded the discussion. Now i see Renauda is posting in it! Hello guy! It is so good to hear from you again!!

[Rainman]

@Larry said in More prostate cancer:

I have avoided opening this thread because with my own recent medical issues i dreaded the discussion. Now i see Renauda is posting in it! Hello gut! It is so good to hear from you again!!

?

[Horace]

Hello gut indeed.

[Rainman]

I think he meant it.

Must be writing a new song.

[Friday]

It really is nice to hear from you again Ren. Hope your recovery continues to go well.

[jon-nyc]

Thanks for the PSA PSA.

I’ve never had one and get this - I already get monthly blood draws and my dad died of prostate cancer.

And the idea of getting a bad diagnosis isn’t scary anymore. I was long since dragged out of the fantasy that I was somehow bulletproof.

So yeah, not a lot of excuses. I’ll get it added to my regimen.

Geed to see you here and glad you’re doing well.

[Klaus]

While PSA tests may of course save lives in individual cases, that is not an argument that they should be performed in general because it ignores the cases where the PSA test may have made the situation worse.

This is how Wikipedia summarizes the state of the art.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 found that over a 7 to 10-year period, "screening did not reduce the death rate in men 55 and over."[50] Former screening proponents, including some from Stanford University, have come out against routine testing. In February 2010, the American Cancer Society urged "more caution in using the test." And the American College of Preventive Medicine concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to recommend routine screening."

PSA tests result in huge amounts of money being shifted. Whenever that much money is involved, one has to be very careful about whom to trust.

[Renauda]

I do not see how a simple blood test can make matters worse, but what you just wrote, Klaus, seems as good an excuse as I have ever heard not to get a routine PSA test.

[Mik]

Besides that, it is statistical, which does not help me as an individual at all. I care about MY prostate not a sampling of people. I'll keep getting the blood test annually.

[Renauda]

That's more or less how I have approached this question the past nine years. Strangely enough, I don't regret doing so either.