On Sep 18, 10:37*pm, "Edward Dolan" wrote:
"JimmyMac" wrote in message

...
On Sep 15, 6:00 pm, "Edward Dolan" wrote:
[...]

I remember after my first PSA test, which was high, I was later examined
by
an old school doctor at the VA who relied strictly on the digital exam. He
assured me I did not have prostate cancer, but still I worried about that
high PSA. So I repeated it until there was no mistake. My PSA was rising
steadily and fast. A biopsy confirmed that I had prostate cancer.

The PSA test is not definitive. But a biopsy is.
PSA is a biomarker that is flawed, but it is the best that we have

until promising horizon methods become available. *In the interim,
free PSA, PSA velocity, and PSA density tests are helpful. *Just the
same, PSA screening remains controversial because it is has not been
definitively established if the PSA test actually saves lives.
Moreover, it is not clear that the benefits of PSA screening outweigh
the risks of follow-up diagnostic tests and cancer treatments. For
instance, the PSA test may detect small cancers that would never
become life threatening.

Almost everyone I know my age has a slightly elevated PSA, but they are all
on the watchful waiting regime. On the other hand, if the PSA is fairly high
to begin with and is rising rapidly, your only recourse is a biopsy, a not
particularly dangerous procedure.

I recently read that 20% of 20 year old already have some prostate
cancer cells. I was shocked and dismayed. As concern a DRE, one can
have prostate cancer without palpable tumors, so just like the PSA , a
DRE is not entirely a sole reliable indicator.

I have just spent the past day at the ER for a stomach ailment. They put
me
through every standard routine test to make sure I did not have something
that was going to kill me. In the end, "you probably got a bug that will
pass." Was that information worth over $1000? Until today, I thought I
might
have stomach cancer.
Often the price of reassurance is steep, but whether worth it or not

is a judgment call that only the individual with the malady and
pocketbook can make.

The trouble is that you never know for sure one way or another. Your
symptoms will normally either get better to get worse. But if you wait on
that outcome, you can easily expire from whatever is ailing you - most
especially if you are old like I am.

Yep, its a crap shoot and a crap shoot is a gamble and what's at stake
is near an dear to you on a very personal level.

Emergency Rooms are truly remarkable places. If you fear for your life, that
is where you want to be.

A trauma center is better yet since trauma centers generally have a
greater depth of experience adn are often associated with teaching
institutions that are on top of the cutting edged of medical
technology and treatment.

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota