zlacker

>>dale_h+(OP)
I don’t understand why PSA levels aren’t included as part of the standard blood work done with check ups.

>>aantix+CA
My understanding is that it's net negative to test too much.

A lot of men die with prostate cancer, because only very few die from it. And if you belong to the former group, knowing about it or doing any kind of intervention means a massive loss in quality of life. So the best course of action overall is to close our eyes and stop looking. And hope you don't belong to the latter group.

>>henrik+dJ
It's an indication that something's wrong with the system. We'd get better overall health outcomes if we tested everyone and told a large cohort of people "you do have cancer, and there are these possible treatments for it, but we recommend you don't take any of those treatments and just hope for the best". But between doctors and patients and other healthcare participants, we collectively can't do this - a large minority of people will freak out and demand treatment and the healthcare providers will feel compelled to go along with it.

Perhaps this plan just needs better marketing. Instead of dividing tumors into benign and malignant we could have a third category for malignant but slow-growing.

>>dmurra+TO
The thing that's "wrong" is that we're very good at detecting it, but comparatively very bad at curing it.

If there was a simple cure for it once detected, we could screen and test everyone all the time.