Day Five Of Six

Men, if you’re over 50 years old, there is a 50% chance you’ve already had prostate cancer. Wait, you’re alive and never knew you had it! This is, according to Dr. Albin, exactly why we want to rethink taking an inaccurate test that is grossly over diagnosing cancer. The consequences of this may be life threatening, if not lifestyle threatening. These prostate cancer statistics should disturb every man.

Doug Kaufmann:

Why does it matter if an inaccurate test has been used erroneously to tell millions of men that they had prostate cancer?

Dr. Richard Ablin:

Prostate cancer is an age-related disease. For instance, almost half of all men aged from 50 to 59 have prostate cancer. But the clinical fact is this: only 3% of all men diagnosed with prostate cancer die of it; 97% of men with prostate cancer die of another cause, such as old age. If you screen every man, using the very arbitrary measures of PSA, yes you’ll discover a lot of cancers, but the vast majority (97%) of those cancers will never harm those men. So in fact, the subsequent treatments, such as radical prostatectomy, will do those men unnecessary life-altering harms.

There is no such thing as 100% in health care. Every test and treatment has its own rate of exchange based on benefit versus risk of harm. In PSA testing, the harms greatly outweigh the any benefits. Another sobering reality is that there are no clinical data that show that men with prostate cancer who have surgery live longer than men who do not seek treatment. In my book I explain these conundrums and point out that instead of wasting billions of dollars on PSA tests, we need to use those precious resources to find a true prostate cancer-specific marker, and equally, if not  more important, improved methods of treatment with substantially less side effects, even toward a possible cure, because currently there is no cure.

MORE TOMORROW…

Related Articles:

– The PSA Test – My Take
– DAY SIX OF SIX
– DAY FIVE OF SIX
– DAY FOUR OF SIX
– DAY THREE OF SIX
– DAY TWO OF SIX
– DAY ONE OF SIX
– Prostate Cancer and the PSA Test 

The Germ That Causes Cancer

This book expounds upon the role of fungus in cancer.  Most physicians are unaware that common antibiotics may contribute to cancer while drugs that kill fungus often help cancer patients.  This is an important book that has been reduced to a much easier read for the layperson.  It includes a chemotherapy nurses notes, the confessions of a chemotherapy drug salesman and a physicians account of what he would do if he were diagnosed with cancer.

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