Two well-known celebrities were diagnosed with cancer this week – and each case illustrates the confusion that is indicative of the experience of cancer diagnosis in our broken medical system. Ryan O’neal announced his diagnosis last Friday (4/13) stating that he has stage 4 prostate cancer, but has been given a "positive" prognosis because it [...]
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 [...]
I'd like to invite everyone to read an article by Gary Schwitzer which nicely summarizes some interesting ideas relating to the concept of Active Surveillance originally posted on healthnewsreviews.org. Any discussion is very welcome!
It's interesting to reflect on the recent USPTF PSA upheaval - and to consider how and why we are here from a position of compassion. Personally, I'm interested and involved because my dad died of aggressive prostate cancer. He was screening - back in 1996 when screening was gaining momentum as a tool to find [...]
Tomorrow is our last to comment on the USPTF draft recommendations for PSA. Now - more than ever, please consider who you vote for and what they stand for... look deeper than peacock posturing and flashy promises. What has this person done for the people they've been responsible to in the past? Are they bought [...]
Please submit your comments to the USPTF. We need 30,000 by November https://web.archive.org/web/20111210163948/http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org:80/uspstf%5Fform3/
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 [...]
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 [...]
Without getting into any details about side-effects, from what I understand, a lot of prostate cancer patients experience them, and many exit treatment feeling unprepared for the physical and psychological burden associated with them. What’s worse, some “don’t want to talk about them” even to the extent of living with side-effects for years without being [...]
Over the next few days, in honor of breast cancer awareness month, I’ll attempt some interesting and non-funding related “analogies” where parallel programs to some surprisingly cost effective and simple, yet currently non-existent, cause components might be developed for prostate cancer. These ideas might improve patient quality of life, screening effectiveness, and advocacy in general.
