The gutter press today is full of the news of an actress who reveals (in an Op-Ed to the New York Times) that given her DNA sensitivity to the possibility of having breast and uterine cancer that she has had a double mastectomy to lower her chances. Fine, I'm familiar with the DNA studies and she is hardly the first person to have some procedure performed to ward off, or at least lower their chances, of contracting not only disease but certain difficult conditions. (I believe it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who had heart surgery to allay certain problems with his heart. ) All well and good. But is anyone aware of preventative castration to stymy testicular cancer? Is there a gene study that would suggest to a surgeon that this is a proper course? Perhaps this is done everyday and I'm not aware of it but, as I had a general physical today, I asked my physician and he wasn't aware of it either.

I'm specifically concerned with a group of men to whom the spectre of testicular cancer is a nightmare and, probably wouldn't consider castration to save their lives if they had it.

At least I won't worry about testicular cancer...where ever they ended up in "medical waste" perhaps they'll get contact dermatitis or whatever but cancer? No.

HI,

I think you have a good idea there but with how the medical establishment in the USA has a double-standard about such a surgery for men. Castration for men is only recommended when a male already has cancer.

considering (imported) wrote: Wed May 15, 2013 1:00 pm The gutter press today is full of the news of an actress who reveals (in an Op-Ed to the New York Times) that given her DNA sensitivity to the possibility of having breast and uterine cancer that she has had a double mastectomy to lower her chances. Fine, I'm familiar with the DNA studies and she is hardly the first person to have some procedure performed to ward off, or at least lower their chances, of contracting not only disease but certain difficult conditions. (I believe it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who had heart surgery to allay certain problems with his heart. ) All well and good. But is anyone aware of preventative castration to stymy testicular cancer? Is there a gene study that would suggest to a surgeon that this is a proper course? Perhaps this is done everyday and I'm not aware of it but, as I had a general physical today, I asked my physician and he wasn't aware of it either.

I'm specifically concerned with a group of men to whom the spectre of testicular cancer is a nightmare and, probably wouldn't consider castration to save their lives if they had it.

At least I won't worry about testicular cancer...where ever they ended up in "medical waste" perhaps they'll get contact dermatitis or whatever but cancer? No.

HI,

nutme248 (imported) wrote: Wed May 15, 2013 2:34 pm I think you have a good idea there but with how the medical establishment in the USA has a double-standard about such a surgery for men. Castration for men is only recommended when a male already has cancer.

This is not entirely accurate. If one has the possibility of having testicular cancer, such as having lumps or masses in the testicles, if one has significant chronic testicular pain, if one is seriously injured in the testicles, or if one has untreated testicular torsion, these are also valid indications for an orchiectomy.

Unencumbered,

I stand corrected. Thanks.

unencumbered (imported) wrote: Wed May 15, 2013 3:06 pm This is not entirely accurate. If one has the possibility of having testicular cancer, such as having lumps or masses in the testicles, if one has significant chronic testicular pain, if one is seriously injured in the testicles, or if one has untreated testicular torsion, these are also valid indications for an orchiectomy.

considering (imported) wrote: Wed May 15, 2013 1:00 pm I'm specifically concerned with a group of men to whom the spectre of testicular cancer is a nightmare and, probably wouldn't consider castration to save their lives if they had it.

Testicular cancer has a very high survival rate, 95% I believe, and there is no good reason to remove one's testicles because one might get this cancer in the future since it's easily detectable once it occurs. The real cancer to be concerned about is prostate cancer, which afflicts more men of any cancer and it not as detectable and is more deadly. If one's male siblings or father has or gets this disease at an early age, it is a good indication that you might also get it. Getting a preventative bilateral orchiectomy is the surest way to assure that you won't too.

Hmm... In younger days i was afraid of testicular cancer, particularly in one testicle abnormal from birth. Then, later in life I got other trouble in the only good one. So the doc took both. Did my breeding before and so no big deal with HRT. My PCP tells me I have a small prostate with normal PSA test each year. If I stopped the T, I'd lose the prostate after only a short while, and no cancer there too. Then I'd be like Tugon, River, and -perish the thought- maybe even The Nun!

Can you imagine???

Life's pretty cool the way it is, but who's to know tomorrow?

In the early 1980s, a very good friend of mine was treated with radiation for prostate cancer. His oncologist argued that he would not want to be without testicles, even though he was in his 60s and not married, and not interested in helping make a baby. Two years or so later, after his prostate cancer had spread to his bone marrow and elsewhere, and he was a few months to go before dying, he got the orchiectomy that might have stopped the prostate cancer from metastasizing. What was the result of his orchiectomy, done according to medical doctrine of that time? He may have had an extra few days of miserable suffering before he died, and I decided that prevention of cancer for people whose family history suggests exceptionally high terminal cancer risk (my family, for instance) was a vastly wiser choice than the way my friend went.

I did not know for sure what my before-the-fact-of-terminal-cancer risk was, nor did I need to know. I simply chose life over death the the extent that I actually had such a choice. My dad's prostate very nearly took him out when he was 51. Serious prostate surgery at a major teaching university hospital gave him a reprieve for another 15 years; then terminal cancer became his end of life experience.

I figured I had a chance of doing better than that, but only if I got sufficient, timely preventive surgeries. Which, so far, I seem to have gotten.

While many mental models (biological/medical mental models) of cancer are comparatively simple, the actual biology of cancer, when there are many contributing factors, can be immensely complex.

My bioengineering doctoral adviser worked at developing biological pattern recognition approaches for recognizing rare cancer risk factors; when I applied his work to my family, I found no way to evade my being a member of a family in which cancer was sometimes apparently deadly even at rather young age. So, I set out to get the surgeries I deemed most likely to impair my ability to die from cancer in the manner of my friend and my dad.

I encountered massive resistance from almost all the physicians I was able to consult. However, not one such physician understood biological pattern recognition nearly well enough to understand my concern with any useful accuracy.

What got me my orchiectomy was eventually finding a doctor who was willing to allow that my grasp of relevant biology totally overwhelmed that doctor's grasp.

It is still difficult for me to find doctors who can tolerate my understanding relevant aspects of biology far better than they do.

It has been determined that I have a form of the "attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis" gene; the condition I have was not yet identified when I got my orchiectomy and colectomy in 1986.

My guess for now is that my passion for understanding theoretical biology, and for understanding practical applications of theoretical biology, may have been what allowed me to "stand up" to the doctors who would have let me die as did my dad and brother, and that friend of mine.

On a network news broadcast a this evening, Angela Jolie was the actress named whose "draconian" surgeries may have given her freedom from early cancer death.

Sometimes, accuracy of thinking and accuracy of understanding can be matters of life or death.

janekane (imported) wrote: Wed May 15, 2013 8:37 pm I encountered massive resistance from almost all the physicians I was able to consult. ...

What got me my orchiectomy was eventually finding a doctor who was willing to allow that my grasp of relevant biology totally overwhelmed that doctor's grasp.

In both my consultations, which led to my orchiectomies, the physicians both asked about the history of prostate cancer in my family to help them determine, with all the other indications available to them, if the surgeries were justified.

"

janekane (imported) wrote: Wed May 15, 2013 8:37 pm What got me my orchiectomy was eventually finding a doctor who was willing to allow that my grasp of relevant biology totally overwhelmed that doctor's grasp.

" Janekane as part of a fascinating reply.

Fran Dresher, of all people, once said something regarding medicine, treatment and doctors that is not only absolutely correct but actually profound.

"When it comes to dealing with the medical you have to learn to be your own advocate..." Spoken in relation to a cancer she had and her problems in getting it accurately and correctly (the two are not the same) diagnosed.

The lady could not be more correct. I have MS and it took four years of constantly pursuing something I knew to be wrong to get a diagnosis. The main, and most frequently given one was, "If you are diagnosed with this it will negatively effect your life, your career etc." It hasn't but without my making a nuisance-and more-of myself, it might have been ten more years without some sort of treatment or recognition that I had a very real medical issue, was not just "staying home" because I was lazy and was declining lectures because I wasn't offered sufficient compensation. How amusing it would have been for me to be working at a problem giving a lecture and having a seizure.

Whether it be castration or athlete's foot, if we cannot be our own advocates regarding our health then we expose ourselves to mis guided, if usually unintentional, medical meddling that is pointless or useless or both. And for which we will pay, if we're lucky, only with money. In fact, hand me my soap box, we need to learn to be our own advocates in many things, most things really but we are all swayed by the "convenience" factor of our current society. It does not really reward work, it rewards, on a structured scale, doing what everyone else is doing. We now do not do a flotilla of things that could easily be done by ourselves just because it's been made to seem more convenient which generally means we are paying a "convenience" fee more generally recognized as "shipping and handling costs". (Ever buy something from an informercial and discover that, locally, you could probably buy whatever it was for less money and the only shipping and handling would be your picking it up and the price you paid to go get it in terms of time or fuel. Of course, you had it the day you wanted it as opposed to several weeks to several months later...)

I'll shut up and go away. For a while.

Granted, breasts and testicles serve different functions, and affect the body in different ways if (when) removed.

Some women have their breasts reduced or removed just because they are too large and heavy and are adversely affecting their body and health.

Except due to disease, men rarely have a problem with balls that are "too big".

Now, removing any part of your body because it might cause cancer (whether by family history, DNA testing, or just personal fear) may seen radical to some people.

Screw them.

It's YOUR body.

It's YOUR money.

If you want to be proactive to potentially reduce the chance of getting cancer, the government and the medical system should shut up and butt out.

Then again, if cancer if one's rationalization for removing body parts, that person should also be proactive in life style, such as what goes into their stomach and lungs.

And exercise, and all the other factors that are shown (or hypothesized .... aka: believed ) to reduce cancer risk.

And the same goes for non-cancer reasons for wanting body parts removed.

It's YOUR body.

As long as you are not having a negative impact on others, what's the big plucking deal with everyone else deciding how YOU should live YOUR life.

The aggregate of society has been that way for a long time, and will undoubtedly be that way for a long time.

It's just flippin annoying.