Prostate Cancer Testing Can Harm Older Men
From Yahoo! News:
The study findings suggest many men are being subjected to unnecessary anxiety about test results and a cancer diagnosis, unneeded diagnostic procedures, and potential side effects of prostate cancer treatment, says lead researcher Louise C. Walter, MD, a staff physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
“I’ve seen it happen to my patients,” explains Walter a geriatrician. “They get very worried and get procedures done to them that leave them incontinent and impotent for a disease that I thought wasn’t going to cause them major problems.”
Other experts agree the findings are cause for concern. Several studies suggest that men over 70 or 75 can indeed suffer because of the procedures used to diagnose and treat prostate cancer, notes Andrew Wolf, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia Health System and a member of the ACS Primary Care Advisory Committee.
“There’s a good chance a lot of these men are being harmed,” adds Wolf, who was not involved in the study.
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