The USPSTF recently updated their cancer screening guidelines, recommending against prostate cancer screening in men older than 75.
Toni Brayer recaps the controversy surrounding the PSA test. With a Democratic-controlled government, a push is going to be made for a comparative effectiveness institute. There is a real possibility that the dogma of “more screening equals better medicine” will be challenged.
Patients are going to face the repercussions of evidence-based medicine, which means the denial of scores of unproven tests that patients are receiving today.
topics: cancer screening, comparative effectiveness
Related posts:
- Should I get a PSA test for prostate cancer? A new study shows that screening for prostate cancer doesn’t necessarily save lives
- Will patients accept the limitations of prostate cancer screening?
- PSA and prostate cancer screening
- Will patients accept the new, evidence-based, breast cancer screening guidelines?
- Prostate cancer screening in blacks, and the lack of balanced information
- How screening for prostate cancer can be a gamble, and why either screening or not has consequences
- Prostate cancer screening in men over 75
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 1 comment }
Again, the herd at the expense of the individual. What is good for the many is not always good for the one, and it is too easy to make outliers expendable for the herd.
Individual tolerance of risk and benefit and cost should govern doctor/patient decisions.
All patients should choose whether or not to carry insurance on their own.
All patients should be treated as if they pay ever cent of the cost of care themselves.
Treatment decisions should not be made to benefit the herd, but the individual patient.
Comments on this entry are closed.