Delusional Advocacy

Over the past few years, I've been taking a hard look at mass screening programs.  Educational surveys showed that almost 40% of participants believed screening to be preventive in that they would actually prevent prostate cancer - that they could stop it from happening, like a vaccine - by screening.  Over 85% believed abnormal screening [...]

Overtreatment epidemic – probably not unique to prostate cancer…

Earlier this year my mom was in a terrible care accident. She miraculously survived with multiple fractures. Were this to have happened to most women her age they would have been a pile of bone dust. In the hospital after the accident they set what bones they could and attached an external fixater on her [...]

“You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.”

Those are the words of Warren Buffet, and from what has been published about his prostate cancer, he might be in a better seat if he was in one of those dry spells re ideas about treatment... and I keep pulling my hair out wondering what national advocacy groups are doing. Will they rise to [...]

The forest through the trees

In December of 2011 the National Institute of Health (NIH) released a draft State-of-the-Science Conference Statement.  The focus of the study was on PSA-based screening which has identified many men with low-risk prostate cancer.  Over the past decade active surveillance has emerged as a viable option for men with low-risk prostate cancer. This represents approximately [...]

By |2012-01-21T15:18:55-05:00January 21st, 2012|Treatment News|0 Comments

Topic 3, Multidisciplinary Care

This particular topic may be the most important. A few have tried to put the discussion about its importance on the table (ref. this document published by the AUA back in 2005), but perhaps old habits die hard? General cancer conferences are mandated by the Commission on Cancer (CoC). You can’t be a community cancer [...]

Topic 2, Prostate Conservation

Over treatment is the big issues thrown out there in any discussion about why men shouldn’t screen.  So a couple of years ago the concept of Active Surveillance began to gain broader conceptual adoption.  It’s  generally considered to be a good smart option for maybe as many as half of men who are diagnosed, provided [...]

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