Guidelines from various medical societies differ in their recommendations. Their inherent biases offer an explanation:
The preventive medicine group and the generalist groups worry more about costs and complications which follow the screening strategy. The urologists and cancer experts worry more about curing cancer. By implication, they worry less about the collateral damage which comes from screening.
Related posts:
- Who’s not happy with the new prostate cancer screening recommendations?
- Prostate cancer screening in men over 75
- Prostate cancer screening and the PSA test
- PSA and prostate cancer screening
- Should I get a PSA test for prostate cancer? A new study shows that screening for prostate cancer doesn’t necessarily save lives
- How screening for prostate cancer can be a gamble, and why either screening or not has consequences
- Should prostate cancer screening stop after the age of 75?
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{ 2 comments }
I would not mess with the US system in any way whatsoever (except for keeping payments equal to inflation). US prostate screening and care is the best in the world.
Completely curable males are dead and buried elsewhere, such as the UK.
Ed Sodaro MD
Ed, do you have some real data like RCTs or at the very least population-based prostate cancer mortality rates comparison between say the UK and the US? Oh, wait, BTW – here is a look at age-standardized prostate cancer mortality rates in various countries. Doesn’t appear to be any difference between the UK and the US.
Or are you basing your claims on 5-year survival rates and ratio of cured/detected? Ever heard of lead-time bias? How about overdiagnosis? Do you understand that because of these biases any screening will improve both 5-year survival rates and ratio of cured/detected even if it doesn’t save a single person.
You are an MD, yet your post reads like that of a layperson – all emotions and zero real data, not to mention utter lack of understanding of even very basic epidemiology.
You are welcome to show your evidence – the type that is not subject to either lead-time or overdiagnosis bias.
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