From Time.com - no prostate cancer treatments for elderly men

[nullorchis (imported)]

This information is being distributed by the same government that started an illegal invasion of another country using erroreous or falsified information (even if it was being run by a mad man dictator....as is North Korea) and a government that suppressed valid information on climate change.

I just don't trust them. It might be a scheme to let older men, who are on social security and drawing Medicare, avoid medical care and die early in a strategy to reduce the government's cash payments to those people.

If the main problem is cancer in the prostate, and it must be removed to prevent the spread of the cancer there are doctors that will remove the prostate without damaging the nerves that operate the penis. It's a delicate and costly operation.

My father did not remove his prostate. He did not use chemo. He used radiation.

He went through a lot of pain. Eventually the cancer spread into his testicles and he wound up having surgery to remove the prostate and both testicles anyway.

The only right answer is what you choose to do after weighing in on the information available and after you make an educated guess. Nothing is certain in life.

Once you make your choice there will be no way to tell what might have happened had you made another choice. Making a different choice might have resulted in the same, or worse result.

Work with your Doctors. Don't believe what the government is telling you.

The government makes lots of mistakes, falsifies data, and in my opinion is not a reliable source of information.

[Blaise (imported)]

This information is being distributed by the same government that started an illegal invasion of another country using erroreous or falsified information (even if it was being run by a mad man dictator....as is North Korea) and a government that suppressed valid information on climate change.

I just don't trust them. It might be a scheme to let older men, who are on social security and drawing Medicare, avoid medical care and die early in a strategy to reduce the government's cash payments to those people.

If the main problem is cancer in the prostate, and it must be removed to prevent the spread of the cancer there are doctors that will remove the prostate without damaging the nerves that operate the penis. It's a delicate and costly operation.

My father did not remove his prostate. He did not use chemo. He used radiation.

He went through a lot of pain. Eventually the cancer spread into his testicles and he wound up having surgery to remove the prostate and both testicles anyway.

The only right answer is what you choose to do after weighing in on the information available and after you make an educated guess. Nothing is certain in life.

Once you make your choice there will be no way to tell what might have happened had you made another choice. Making a different choice might have resulted in the same, or worse result.

Work with your Doctors. Don't believe what the government is telling you.

The government makes lots of mistakes, falsifies data, and in my opinion is not a reliable source of information.

Well, men certainly do die from Prostate cancer and that death is painful. It invades the bones. I have a lot of confidence in my urologist, though I would weigh risks in treatment options. I appreciate your post.

[Paolo]

Not to turn this into a debate on what medical treatments should be allowed for whom, but it's pretty much common sense that if prostate cancer is detected in someone, say in their 80's, then it doesn't make much sense to dump a bunch of money into their treatment. Start with the cheapest, simplest approach. Statistically, something else is going to get them first: heart attack, stroke, you pick one...

As I mentioned before, my boss's dad and his friend (a local doctor) were both diagnosed within weeks of one another. The doctor opted for the radical treatment, surgery, etc., and in 6 months he was dead. That was some years ago. "Dad" followed the natural approach, from the book "The Cure for All Cancers", and he's not had any spreading, etc., since. He does take chemical androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and refuses any type of surgery beyond the initial biopsy. He should have been dead 5 years ago or so, or so they said.

I've not had time to read the chapter on prostate cancer yet, though.

[speedvogel (imported)]

The value of routine PSA screening is still open to debate in the urology business especially and in medicine in general. That is because so many factors besides prostate cancer can cause it to be elevated. Having sex within 48 hours before the test can cause an elevation! False positives can be very destructive to many men. There is a guy who has posted here about his intention to have every procedure known to mankind and he has not even had a biopsy to see what is really going on.

The gold standard now for prostate cancer treatment (presuming a stage 1 or 2 tuimor) is the daVinci robotic prostatectomy. My PSA was 7.3 at the last test, but I had an active infection. Presuming the infection is still gone in another 3 weeks, if my PSA is still elevated we will do a biopsy. I suspect that the elevation is due to my BPH and to the infection I've been fighting for the last 10 months. If the PSA is more normal, we will do the BIOLITEC laser procedure to reduce my prostate. In case we find cancer, daVinci, here I come.

Speed

[chilliwilli (imported)]

I forget the stats, but something like 85% people over the age of 80 have some form of cancer. Breast cancer numbers, while Breast Ca does kill women who are young and is devistating, has been pumped up by all the senile women sitting in nursing homes who have biopsied positive for it. I was repeatedly reminded of this fact by women with phd's in nursing school.

I would not put it beyond the government sponsered medical community to prevent treatment for prostate ca to reduce overall costs.

chilli-

[testicles2 (imported)]

I've read that diseases like prostate and breast cancer are very likely related to diet.

many people in China or other Asian countries did not have the problems(as much to say the least) with the prostatecancer or breastscancer as we have in the western countries.

and the guilty foods seem to be dairy and meat.

IGF1 hormones and all that.

I'm no doctor or anyhing like that,but I did read a lot on the internet about it.

do some research via google on 'jane plant dairy',or prof.Campbell dairy'.

but when we get older we all do get less vital ,that's for sure.

but the numbers are way too high on those specific cancers.

many young women get breastcancer.look at how big/tall people get on the dairy/meat diets.cancer grows hard on those diets too.

[Woggler58 (imported)]

I disagree strongly with the main conclusion of this article -- that men older and younger than an arbitrary age bracket should not have screening for prostate cancer. I say the grounds given for this conclusion are spurious and assume that screening that appears positive for prostate cancer will always result in treatment for it as well -- an absurdity on its face, given that many cases are slow moving and may be outlived.

In effect the article advocates prevention of inappropriate or unnecessary cancer treatment by avoiding knowledge of whether the cancer may exist. That's an ostrich's method of risk avoidance, or a heartless Scrooge's, not an intelligent human's.

My own very necessary prostate cancer treatments at age 64 would have been simpler, less expensive, and have less side effects had I been screened during the six years before 2006 and promptly been treated, before reaching the intermediate stage that prevailed when it was discovered. Had I been 75 instead of 63 when having this stage and seeking screening, but denied screening under this guise of "saving me" from treatment, I'd be beyond saving my life within a few more years of not knowing.

I believe in first screening by PSA test at 30 to get a baseline, then if it's plenty low repeating at four-year intervals. Buy your own PSA testing if necessary. When PSA goes over 2.5, then also test once for "free PSA percentage" and regard 20% and higher as benign. At 4.0 do "free PSA" with each PSA test and do them annually. When they climb higher than that and rapidly, and free PSA falls under 15%, then consider a biopsy to resolve the doubt.

This advice is akin to advising checking the gages and oil presure in your car, in that it can tell you when you need a professional "mechanic" to help you with the treatment question. Not checking your oil because your car is old is not a good way to lengthen its good service to you.

A follow-up to what I wrote above: a new article (pp 2-13) in the quarterly journal Insights of the Prostate Cancer Research Institute, online in pdf at http://www.prostate-cancer.org/resource/pdf/Is11-3.pdf Author Dr. Stephen Strum is the best source of info on PC I've ever come across; his practice is treating by medicine advanced PC or PC that has returned after surgery, radiation, etc., or in men who are not suitable for invasive primary treatments. On page 4 he tackles head-on the subject of this thread, beginning, "I have been shocked to see articles advising men NOT to have PSA testing, stating that this will lead to a treatment ... that could harm the patient and impair his quality of life."

My 8-18 post above is based in part on my understandings of Dr Strum's views from before this Insights article came out. I recommend this latest of his to all who may have an interest or a need to know. About one man in seven will unfortunately have such a need. This area of medical knowledge is fast advancing and PCRI is both causing some of that advance and reporting on all of it in plain language we can understand.

[gandalf (imported)]

I can see the pros and cons of radical treatment for older men. Maybe the best (and easiest) solution would be to have castration more readily available and the first step in controllong PC. As my daughter told me before my surgery, "Dad, you're olde enough you don't need them anymore anyway".

Of course, her husband would disagree.

[jane_says (imported)]

My 65-year-old father-in-law was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. He said had it been up to him (meaning the rest of the family, and especially his wife who has gone two rounds and several surgeries with breast cancer) he'd have done nothing. In the end he opted for the radioactive seeds, and the only downside is that he couldn't hold the grandkids on his lap for a bit after they were implanted, nor allow them to stand between his knees, and he had to wear a condom during sex for a while. He did say several times that if castration had been his only option, he'd not have been treated.

I also have an uncle who is 83 and has an apparently slow-moving prostate cancer. He is not being treated as his doctor told him something else would kill him first. He has always been something of a health nut and swims every day (and participates in the Senior Olympics!) but drinks enough to balance it out.