Have we a tendency to ignore medical information up until the time that the information is relevant to us? I am sitting watching a program of the “Doctors” broadcasting information on medical diagnosis everyone should have and the program has finished reviewing breast cancer mammograms and share one out of seven woman will develop the disease.
Then the program moves to prostate cancer screening and shares that one out of seven men, the same ration of breast cancer in women, will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Since in the next hour I am scheduled for ultrasound imaging and a biopsy, I reflect on the journey that has brought me to the need for screening and the methods available to detect prostate cancer.
I find it interesting there is so much information available on breast cancer and there are walks and other fund raisers as well as regular television broadcast information to the public on the vital health issue, yet I am not aware of such an effort for prostate cancer.
Have I simply not been aware of the information since it did not apply to me? Well it does now.
Allow me to share that my story began on the Korea De-Militarized Zone in 1967-68 when unaware; myself and the other soldiers were sprayed with Agent Orange.
Discovering that I was sprayed only recently for the Army never informed us, I applied for an evaluation with the Veterans Administration (VA).
In their health testing the Veterans Administration discovered I had what was considered a high Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) level and referred to my regular doctor. (The level varies by age).
After discussion with my physician, even though digital rectal exam is negative which is a normal procedure in prostate cancer screening, after a second high PSA level in a blood screening sample, I am referred for a biopsy to a group of private specialists. My interest level is now very high and I scan the internet for information on prostate screenings.
Continued visits to the VA result in two additional rectal exams that are also negative. I am in a lavatory during employment testing with the Census Bureau and a gentleman next to me is having difficulty and relates it is due to a second biopsy he recently had and both were negative but had been administered due to high PSA levels.
A second gentleman in the lavatory shares his doctor put him on antibiotics when he had a high PSA level and that took care of it. Well questions begin to jump in my head and I continue my internet research with an emphasis on alternatives to a biopsy.
An article by William Campbell Douglas II, M.D. that I read suggests PSA tests are worthless. This catches my attention and I cancel my ultrasound appointment.
Dr. Douglas in his article sites Dr. Paul Frame with the University of Rochester as stating, “The vast majority of these cancers (prostate) don’t progress and don’t hurt anybody and don’t lead to death.”
Dr. Douglas suggests that the best screen available that is safe and effective is the Anti Malignan Antibody Screen (AMAS). Your physician takes a blood sample and sends it to a lab. He states with two tests given the results are 99% reliable. Neither my private physician nor the VA was willing to diverge from accepted practice.
Further research leads me to an article by Dr. Cris Gupta who states the AMAS is cheap, safe and reliable. ” authorities are committed to a host of expensive but highly profitable diagnostic (and treatment) techniques (mammograms, MRIs, gastrointestinal series, etc,). Were it not for the intransigence of established authorities, the AMAS test would be much more widely used.”
He then shares that a simple pregnancy test can be used to diagnose cancer. A hormone called the chorionic gonadotrophic (CGH) by trophoblast cells and is detected in the urine for pregnancy tests. If a woman tests positive she either is pregnant or has abnormal malignant cancer.
If a man tests positive then of course he is not pregnant but cancer can be the only cause. Gupta states, “so why all the expensive and dangerous biopsies carried out to detect cancer growth? One can only assume that Medicare pays doctors a larger fee for biopsies than pregnancy tests.”
The pregnancy test is said to have better than 92% accuracy.
Off I go to Dollar Tree to purchase a dollar pregnancy test. Negative! My next decision is to consult with VA Urology. The accepted practice of a biopsy is recommended. I now need to weigh the negative pregnancy test, three rectal exams, together with the knowledge that even a biopsy is not completely accurate. Do I want to undertake an expensive procedure that may not be accurate and support health cost overruns?
What if the pregnancy test was in the false negatives, in the 8% that are wrong? My decision was to reschedule my biopsy and was based on the trust in the advice of my medical practioners. My biopsy results are due in a week and my ultrasound results were negative.
And yes, I now pay close attention and will for the rest of my life to any information on prostate cancer, its diagnosis and treatment.
The National Cancer Institute estimates for 2008 there were about 180,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed in the United States and 28,660 deaths. Men, are you paying attention?
Ernesto Alvarado (neto3@aol.com) is a retired school administrator/psychologist who was raised as a migrant worker and is of Mexican-Apache ancestry. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
