Writing as a man aged 66, you’d think I’d be concerned about prostate cancer, one of the current health hobby horses. In a way I am, but I also have an aversion to being told to worry about one thing after another, and my concerns also include the side-effects of treatment which are consistently overlooked in all sorts of contexts. I have seen what has happened to friends and relatives who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
When I watched a Hannah Fry Horizon documentary about her own cervical cancer experience, the side-effects of her treatment and the research she’d pursued, one of the most alarming points raised was that the risk of life-changing side effects from chemotherapy seemed to be somewhat higher than the risk from breast cancer. She asked “are we over-medicalising” cancer?
Now it seems that a major study running over 15 years has questioned the whole process of prostate cancer screening.
The Telegraph has the story:
Prostate cancer screening is likely to do more harm than good, experts have warned, after a 15-year trial showed one in six flagged cases was wrong.
The largest study to date investigating the PSA (Prostate-specific antigen) blood test, which is used as a screening tool in some European countries, found it had a small impact on reducing deaths, but also led to a worrying level of over-diagnosis.
In some cases, it missed early detection of some aggressive cancers.
Researchers from the universities of Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge, invited more than 400,000 men aged between 50-69 for screening, with just over half receiving a PSA test.
After following up for 15 years, nearly seven men out of every 1,000 in the group invited for screening had died from prostate cancer, compared to nearly eight men out of every 1,000 who had not been tested.
The results of the trial show that an estimated one in six cancers found by the single PSA screening were over-diagnosed leading to unnecessary treatment of tumours that would not have caused any harm in someone’s lifetime
The treatment of prostate cancer may cause physical side-effects including the possibility of infection following a biopsy, erectile dysfunction and bladder and bowel problems.
The key problems seem to involve missing the more aggressive cancers while subjecting other men given a positive diagnosis to treatment that may be unnecessary and causes more harm.
Dr. Neil Smith, GP for Cancer Research U.K. and GP Lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria Cancer Alliance, said: “With prostate cancer causing 12,000 deaths in the U.K. every year, we completely understand why men want to know if they have the disease, even when they don’t have symptoms.
“However, this research highlights that a PSA test for early detection can do more harm than good – it’s simply not accurate enough and can lead to some men having tests and treatment that they don’t need.”
Definitely worth reading in full.
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The two-tier approach to arbitration, justice or anything where simple common sense should apply has now been deliberately inverted. The intention is to confuse and throw the population off balance, a sort of crude update to the C1984 crap of masks, social distancing and the ‘safe and effective.’
Off-com like our judicial system is being run from the outside. There is to be no concession to honesty or decency. In fact if a decision can be made which flouts or inverts common sense, honesty and decency then that is the decision that will be made. Thus, GB News challenging the Off-com decision will simply amount to pissing in the wind although they are absolutely right to have a go.
Kneel’s Davos Britain.
The BBC do it every day and counting over the Climate!
GB News voluntarily agrees to be regulated by Ofcom.
Why?
Well exactly, they had their chance with a proper journalist Mark Steyn, but realised they have no spine.
Clearly, the elite is starting to feel a little bit scared of GB News.
Can’t think why, they’ve killed off all the proper journalists and have Neil Oliver safely confined to Youtube.
When attack comes closer to the enemy the flak increases.
“Will Ofcom turn its guns on ITV in the same way it has GB News? Don’t hold your breath”
It may do but will probably do it while kicking & screaming!
They are an utter disgrace.
A little off-topic but has anyone noticed how Yvette ‘Allo ‘Allo Cooper has aged since 5th July whereas 2TKeir looks like he has not lost a night’s sleep since becoming PM.
2TK is IMHO disconnected from the significance of events as they unfold in the world around him with a total empathy by-pass from birth.
He does not understand and it all goes over his head.
This is why he can keep blathering on as if nothing has happened because to him nothing has.
David Starkey has strongly hinted at the reason why, which I reached some time ago.
Keir-Ching! is on the spectrum. He shows no empathy because he doesn’t “understand” it.
I agree and thought so too.
However, let no one be in any confusion about autstic people.
The high functioning verbal ones are used to disguise and cover up the fact the majority are non-verbal autistics who will need help and care and often residential care for the rest of their lives.
And the numbers keep on increasing and it is a real increase.
The increase has causes and no one cares less to find out what the causes are in order to stop this disaster for children.
I was shocked to learn recently from two people independently that autistic children forced into mainstream classrooms commit suicide.
The two people concerned had that distressing direct experience in their class at two different schools.
How much of that is going on I have no idea and I’ll bet the DfE keeps not records nor statistics of how common it is.
But to encounter two people simultaneously at the same time at the same place who told of each experiencing exactly the same is either a bizarre coincidence or suggests this is more common than anyone realises.
Spot on! It’s the emotionless facial expression that is the giveaway! He just doesn’t ”get it”!
PS 2TK’s insistence the Southport and other ‘riots‘ were by the ‘Far Right‘ is also consistent with his disconnect.
He just does not understand and explains it all away with a dismissive simplistic ‘they’re all Far Right‘ when he was entirely Far Wrong as usual.
Additionally, when he tipped up in Southport to lay his wreath or bunch of flowers or whatever it was it was all clumsily done and so obviously pre-planned and orchestrated as a semi-formal sort of ceremony.
Again, consistent with a man who has no conception of the significance of events happening around him.
He is wholly unable to do anything ex tempore, being incapable of spontaneity.
Everything has to be planned in advance.
This is also consistent with his inability to respond at all to Rishi Sunak’s challenges and questions when they were in a TV debate together.
‘Muppet’ comes to mind but whose hand is it up his arse pulling all the strings?
The Establishment is obviously getting very nervous about GB News.
Leading Labour politicians and Ministers now have no option but to appear on it and be interviewed when previously they could not be bothered.
Let us hope GB News will continue to address the issues other news media do not.
Will other news media ever realise that is major factor in GB News’ success? They probably already have but just carry on regardless as they have always done.
Sue Offcom?