This is a follow-up to a post I wrote called, "PSA Testing: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". http://prostatecancerblog.net/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=2120. Please read that before you read this. Dr. Richard Ablin, father of the PSA test, argued in a New York Times op-ed piece recently that the widespread, routine use of the test to screen for prostate cancer [...]
I just saw that Dana Jennings, who writes a blog about his prostate cancer for the NYT, is discussing language and cancer. So I recycled this essay I wrote some time back. It amazes me that doctors still use the word biochemical failure to refer to a recurrence of prostate cancer. A doctor told me, [...]
A story about prostate cancer (PC) screening titled "The Great Prostate Mistake" which appeared in the New York Times last week, "went viral". Everybody's talking about it. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/opinion/10Ablin.html?scp=1&sq=ablin&st=cse) I refer to an opinion piece written by Dr. Richard Ablin, a researcher in immunobiology and pathology who invented the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test in 1970, the most commonly used [...]
I am reposting this from the blog, "All Things Prostate", written by Dr. Michael Glode, a genito-urinary oncologist at the University of Colorodo Medical Center . . It is a commentary about an article called, "The Great Prostate Mistake", which appeared in the New York Times a few days ago. The author of this article is Richard Ablin, an immunologist [...]
[From physorg.com. All emphasis, e.g., boldface or italic typeface, is mine.] "Prostate Cancer Surgery Performed by Many Surgeons with Little Experience" November 19, 2009 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study from researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has found that the majority of surgeons treating prostate cancer in the United States have extremely low annual caseloads, [...]
As a follow-up to my previous post, here are a few pictures from my recent vacation (click on image to see full size): (1) a lighthouse at Halifax, Nova Scotia; (2) Cormorants at the Bay of Fundy, St. John, New Brunswick; (3) Acadia National Park in Maine; (4) Thunderhole, also at Acadia; and (5) Sunset [...]
I want to thank you all for the comments, letters and other ways you have kept in touch with me. This feedback is what we bloggers live for! But I have to share with you that it might take me a little more time than usual to respond because, although my mind is willing, my [...]
The following observation was made by Michael Lerner, Ph.D, winner of a MacArthur "genius" award and author of a book about cancer and complementary medicine : Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Medicine (MIT Press, 1996). (Available at amazon.com.) "Even when a cure is not possible, healing always is. You see, [...]
What I am posting here is an entry from the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, to which I subscribe ("Searching for Meaning in Terminal Cancer", by Shirley S. Wang, July 14, 2009). http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/07/14/searching-for-meaning-in-terminal-cancer/ You can find the full text of this article in the regular edition of the paper (wsj.com). "Celebrity spokespeople like Lance Armstrong and Christina Applegate [...]
I am glad to see the subject of "Watchful Waiting", or "Active Surveillance as we call it now, being discussed more often as an option for men diagnosed with prostate cancer. I also think it's good that more guys are pursuing AS rather than jumping into (or being prodded into) invasive treatments. It used to [...]
