Las Vegas NowPaula's Health Notes: Listen Up Men

Paula's Health Notes: Listen Up Men

Two remarkable and very important studies were released this week.  One from Europe, one from the United States.  Both of these long term studies (10 years and 7 years, respectively) came to a conclusion that will rattle mainstream thinking about Prostate Cancer.

You can read all the details in the links I've provided for you, below.  I urge you to read at least one article, and both husbands and wives need to read them.

The studies seem to show that the standard Prostate Cancer screening test, called the PSA test, may not save enough lives to justify widespread use.  A high PSA reading can submit a man to painful biopsies and risky surgery.  Most men are well aware of the side effects of that surgery:  incontinence and impotence.  These side effects can change the rest of your life.  And usually, prostate cancer is slow-growing, and a man will die of something else first.  In older men, doctors usually advise "watchful waiting".. but it's more problematic with men under 60.

Whenever I read statistics like this ("only" one life saved for every 48 men who undergo surgery), I have to think, what if that life were my husband's?? And that's the crux of the dilemma.  Doctors have not learned from the studies how to tell which lives will be saved, and which surgeries will turn out to be unnecessary.  When they figure that out, we'll really have a useful yardstick.

Thanks for reading, and for watching!

Paula Francis
KLAS-TV Anchor

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/health/19cancer.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=PROSTATE&st=cse

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/03/a-closer-look-a.html

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/589786