Men, get your prostate checked.
There is apparently some worthwhile debate in progress among healthcare statisticians over whether PSA tests do a very good job of detecting prostate cancer vs. detecting… (other problems with the prostate) vs. giving total false positives. The problem according to the statisticians -- none of whom are MDs that I can see -- is that PSA testing leads to unnecessary biopsies which can have side effects that make life miserable and/or that even the side-effect risks of getting the cancer treated outweigh (or something statistical) the chance of dying of prostate cancer.
All well and good. Interesting blah blah blah. And good political correctness given that so much of the same sort of thing is said about women getting mammograms. But many of these statistical blog posts aren't worded well and say simply that men maybe don’t need to be screened for prostate cancer.
Wrong in my opinion.
Us old men == or at least those between 50-75 == still need to get our prostates checked annually. The issue is the how of the test not whether it needs to be done. You need to get to the point of deciding what the statistics say about getting a prostate cancer treated.
So after you turn your head sideways and cough, you still need to turn around and bend over.
-- Dennis Byron
Note: This statisitcal debate has RomneyCare/Medicare implications both specific to PSA tests and to the whole preventive screening propaganda barrage by the state of Massachusetts and the Obama administration. But first things first... get your prostate checked.
