darryl
New Member
working the ropes at malecare.org prostatecanceraliance.org startacure.com cancermatch.com
Posts: 2 
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Post by darryl on Aug 7, 2014 13:19:34 GMT -8
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Post by Tony Crispino on Aug 7, 2014 13:54:39 GMT -8
Thank you Darryl, Done. Ian Thompson is a personal friend and colleague at SWOG. We have talked numerous times about screening and early stage diagnosis. He is such a smart man and really involved with this topic. I believe in a targeted screening approach and I believe that he differs a little about it. But he is right education is the key and this is a great task for advocates everywhere to participate.
Thank you for sharing.
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Post by Tony Crispino on Aug 7, 2014 17:53:28 GMT -8
Darryl I have yet to see my post show so I assume moderated. That's ok. But you wrote a terrific reply and thank you for it. I concur that we need targeted screening with better screening tools.
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Post by Allen on Aug 8, 2014 11:19:58 GMT -8
Darryl,
Part of the problem is a semantic one that you fell into in your post here. You said the article is about PSA testing - it is not. It is about PSA screening = population-based, routinized, testing. No one is arguing to get rid of PSA testing. Yet most of the people who get huffy over the idea of eliminating PSA screening are really thinking that it means that PSA testing will be done away with altogether. The AUA guidelines represent an effort to do away with routine screening for everyone. They say there ought to be testing for certain high risk individuals at any age from 40-54. For the critical 55-69 y.o. group, they are advocating a process of education and shared decision making, rather than routine screening. I think language has everything to do with the debate.
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vfxer
Junior Member
Posts: 11
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Post by vfxer on Aug 8, 2014 12:13:47 GMT -8
I'm nor sure how I feel about this article due to my story. I had no family history of PC but my father died of Cancer at the base of the tongue and my mother had Breast Cancer when I was 9 years old but died of something else many years later. They noticed my PSA going up at the age of 62, so they did a Biopsy and found out I had Cancer. In my case it took over two years for them to start even thinking that there may be a problem and that was only after my PSA was 5.7, which turned out to be artificially high ( the next two PSA were around 3.5). I believe that even if the PSA or screening has some faults, to me it is well worth having it done since it did catch my Cancer early and I have time to do something about it. Maybe they need to come with some other way of testing/screening but until more groups/people start to getting the word out that Prostate Cancer is not just an "Old Man" disease and that there is more media coverage of the Prostate Cancer cause then things won't change. To give an example, there is so many similarities (in numbers) between Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer but the main stream Media is more likely to make comments about Breast Cancer than they are about Prostate Cancer. It was surprising to see the Today Show last did do some stuff about Prostate Cancer last year but there needs to see more things like that until things change. In my case I am glad that they did do the biopsy when they did.
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Post by Allen on Aug 9, 2014 10:48:11 GMT -8
There is an excellent interview on Medscape today (you have to register) with Richard Ablin who discovered PSA. He traces the history of his discovery (looking for the antigen responsible for the abscopal effect), its legitimate use post-RP in detecting recurrence, the medical-industrial complex that pushed for PSA screening, and the ensuing public health disaster. PSA Test Is Misused, Unreliable, Says the Antigen's Discoverer |
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