Originally Posted by
John E
It is all about population statistics, cost, side effects, and broad public health policy. Ultimately, each individual should still have the right to make his own health decisions, but the more the U.S. moves toward European style single payer universal health insurance ("Medicare for all"), the less choice each of us may have.
You said it perfectly. There's a big debate now about even doing the periodic and cheap PSA test on younger men because of the false positives. False positives should never be an issue as nothing is done until they get a positive biopsy.
The process for me was first the rising PSA, then a second PSA, then a more discriminating type of PSA (Free & Total), then a sonogram which showed negative as did all the "finger" tests. About a year went by with the PSA increasing steadily. Then a positive finger test then a positive biopsy.
There was no rushing in to the expensive stuff with out a lot of confirmation. Of course I live in a smaller town and the doctors here seem to take the necessary time for communication and deliberation. I was fortunate that my doctor was at the time one of only five in the country doing a new type of much less invasive surgery which was being practiced in Europe. Far better than the type advocated by Johns Hopkins at the time. That was a beast.
Al