Men growing old and getting disease

by YankeeJim | October 9, 2011 at 05:06 am

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Yes, women grow old. Sometimes they talk about their wrinkles. They pull their skin back and look in the mirror and wonder if they should get a tuck. They look at wrinkles around their eyes and mouth and wonder about Botox treatment to puff them away. Sometimes, women have serious diseases such as breast and ovarian cancer.

Men have things to worry about too. Men have a walnut-sized item called a prostate. Sometime after 55 or so, the prostate gets bigger. It is useless by this time, but it starts growing. It can grow so big that it puts pressure on the bladder and makes men want to run the bathroom as much as women do. Finally, there is equality and women might say justice.

“Remember, we were carrying babies in there that were bigger than enlarged prostates.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to carry them the rest of your life.”

Urologists track PSA count and say when it is consistently high, you may have a problem. They believed that high PSA correlated with the propensity for having cancer; that turned out not to be not such a good indicator.

Be careful what you ask for

One patient insisted on having his prostate checked for cancer after having a high PSA. The test involves a biopsy. The procedure is for the patient to aim high and hold steady while the urologist inserts a power needle and takes samples from a 360 degree radius while poking through the backend.

How do you think that feels?

“Screening for Prostate Cancer May Do More Harm Than Good

OCT 9 2011, 8:02 AM ET

The United States Prevention Task Force has caused another controversy by recommending against a test for cancer. This time, it's the PSA blood test, which screens for the possibility of prostate cancer. The wide use of the test has led thousands of men to undergo unnecessary and damaging treatment, the task force said in recommending that the test be discontinued.

The panel's announcement was greeted much as its call for an end to mammograms for women in their 40s was two years ago. Doctors, namely urologists, are outraged, and have begun a public relations campaign to reverse the recommendation.

The stakes of the disagreement are as high as it gets: the task force says the PSA test doesn't save lives. A doctor and defender of the test tells the New York Times that some men will die if the PSA is phased out.

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.”