Author Topic: Task Force to Men: Don't Get PSA Test  (Read 10658 times)

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Offline thundley4

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Task Force to Men: Don't Get PSA Test
« on: October 07, 2011, 06:28:12 PM »
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Draft Guidelines Advise Against Common Prostate Cancer Screening Test

Oct. 7, 2011 -- Men should just say "no" to prostate cancer screening with the common PSA blood test, according to draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

About a third of men over age 40, and about half of men age 65 to 79, get regular blood tests for prostate specific antigen, or PSA.

Rising PSA levels are an early sign of prostate cancer, but the test gives a false cancer signal up to 80% of the time. Moreover, not all PSA-detected prostate cancers are dangerous.

"The common perception that PSA-based early detection of prostate cancer saves lives is simply not supported by the scientific evidence," task force co-vice chair Michael L. LeFevre, MD, MSPH, professor of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri, tells WebMD.

The task force's draft statement, leaked to the press a week early, will be open for public comment next week before becoming the official recommendation of the U.S. government's top expert guideline panel.
WebMD

This is the same death panel Task Fork that said mammograms weren't needed for younger women.  Let the cancers spread until it is too late for life saving treatment, then give them some painkillers and send them home to die.

Offline Eupher

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Re: Task Force to Men: Don't Get PSA Test
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2011, 11:49:50 AM »
No government agency associated with the current administration can be trusted -- period. Hell, I'll even go so far as to say that irrespective of administration, government agencies can't be trusted.

FDA has approved the PSA test. Does that mean that FDA will change their minds? Not likely.

As I see it, the PSA test is a TOOL that should be used not as a be-all-end-all, but in combination with OTHER tools.

Just because one has prostate cancer doesn't mean that one should have surgery to have it removed. You can have an indolent, slow-growing cancer that is cancer, but won't kill you. The phrase has been used, "You'll die with prostate cancer, but you won't die from it."

My stepfather had the surgery and he suffered from partial urinary incontinence for the rest of his life, not to mention the impotence angle. I have to assume that a biopsy was taken that confirmed a more aggressive cancer of the type that would kill him if not treated through surgery, but I don't know that. What I do know is that he decided to have the surgery.

that may not have been the best choice to make.

But more to the point -- if the government is recommending something or is recommending taking something away, it's time to suspect a political agenda.


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Offline TVDOC

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Re: Task Force to Men: Don't Get PSA Test
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2011, 12:01:43 PM »
^ The "government" panel perceives this as a cost saving measure.......as they eventually will with all diagnostic testing.  I have trouble following the logic, as the average PSA if combined with any other blood panel costs less than $20, and at least in my case my doctor always follows up with a "physical" examination of the prostate annually, as a part of my routine physical.

They are all over a twenty buck PSA, but never a peep about Medicaid spending $200,000 annually for retroviral medications for an indigent (self induced) AIDs patient.........go figure.

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