Premature Routine Cancer Screening
Benefits of cancer screening are uncertain to say the least
More and more doctors are admitting that for the average person, who shows no symptoms and who has no family history of disease, it’s a “little premature” (translation: useless, and even downright dangerous) to undergo routine cancer screening.
It’s been known for some time that the PSA test used to screen for prostate cancer may not translate into increased survival.
Autopsies done on men in their 80s show that many of them, up to 70 percent, actually had some form of prostate cancer that they were unaware of and never required treatment, since all the men died of other causes. Early prediction of prostate cancer leads to unnecessary treatment, anxiety, and decrease in quality of life for many men. All of this hassle for a “problem” that may never have impacted their lives.
The same holds true for mammography. I’ve written extensively about the dangers of mammography and the controversy continues. There are so many false positives that people get bogged down with anxiety and end up undergoing unnecessary medical procedures.
I’m not denying that some people may have had their lives saved or improved by the discovery of something or other, but I still firmly maintain that the odds are more in favor of inviting a medical disaster.
Too many people suffer needless operations and other procedures for something that may be innocuous. Do not let your doctor bully you. Ask questions or get a second opinion before taking a radical course of treatment based on the results of a cancer screening.
<BR><BR>Mouthing off about junk medicine,
<BR><BR>William Campbell Douglass II, MD
