Doing Science
Here's one for the guys. Particularly those of a certain age.
I've been Doing Science today, taking part in a survey conducted by the University of Oxford's Primary Care Education Research Group, into information men want about PSA testing. This is a blood test for Prostate Specific Antigens, which may (or may not) indicate the presence of prostate cancer. They sent me a selection of information leaflets about PSA testing, and whether or not it can indicate prostate cancer, and what you might decide to do if such a test proved positive, and so on. If you do have heightened PSA levels, you still need to have a potentially painful biopsy to discover if you do in fact have cancer, and this can give false results in a huge number of cases.
As a result I know far more about the risks and side effects of treatment for early prostate cancer, than I ever hope to need to know. As things stand, it looks very much as if the best thing is not to choose treatment, since it's far more likely to lead to diarrhoea, bowel and bladder problems and impotence, than to actually prolong life in any significant way. If I've got this wrong, then obviously the information hasn't worked.
In the interests of public health and information, some useful web-sites are
Cancer Specialist Library
NHS Cancer Screening Programmes
DIPEx.org: Personal experiences of health and illness
It all reminded me of that Victor Meldrew moment when he's reading the medical encyclopedia account of some especially nasty kind of brain tumour - 'There are no symptoms in the early stages' - and exclaims, "My God! That's exactly what I've got!"
I've been Doing Science today, taking part in a survey conducted by the University of Oxford's Primary Care Education Research Group, into information men want about PSA testing. This is a blood test for Prostate Specific Antigens, which may (or may not) indicate the presence of prostate cancer. They sent me a selection of information leaflets about PSA testing, and whether or not it can indicate prostate cancer, and what you might decide to do if such a test proved positive, and so on. If you do have heightened PSA levels, you still need to have a potentially painful biopsy to discover if you do in fact have cancer, and this can give false results in a huge number of cases.
As a result I know far more about the risks and side effects of treatment for early prostate cancer, than I ever hope to need to know. As things stand, it looks very much as if the best thing is not to choose treatment, since it's far more likely to lead to diarrhoea, bowel and bladder problems and impotence, than to actually prolong life in any significant way. If I've got this wrong, then obviously the information hasn't worked.
In the interests of public health and information, some useful web-sites are
Cancer Specialist Library
NHS Cancer Screening Programmes
DIPEx.org: Personal experiences of health and illness
It all reminded me of that Victor Meldrew moment when he's reading the medical encyclopedia account of some especially nasty kind of brain tumour - 'There are no symptoms in the early stages' - and exclaims, "My God! That's exactly what I've got!"
posted by Tony at 11/01/2004 10:32:00 pm
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