CampaignsHealthcare RationingCancer Screening & TreatmentLet's learn from the Bob Monkhouse prostate cancer film Let's learn from the Bob Monkhouse prostate cancer film
18/06/2007
With a screening programme I, maybe Bob and a whole lot of other men would have had the chance of early diagnosis and a greater chance of staying alive, says Mature Times reader James Nicholson.
I feel that I have to respond to the article by Alan Taylor and also with regard to the Bob Monkhouse film on prostate cancer.
I spoke with Jackie Monkhouse briefly on a radio phone in and do admire what she is doing. Like Bob, my cancer was only diagnosed after it had started to spread outside the prostate. Unlike Bob, mine is still locally advanced (the surface of the bowel and bladder are affected). This means I have a better chance of survival than he did, but a lesser chance than if it was diagnosed while it was still in the prostate. To me it is a scandal that we do not copy the Americans in running a screening programme for this cancer.
With a screening programme I, maybe Bob and a whole lot of other men would have had the chance of early diagnosis and a greater chance of staying alive. It is simple fact that the survival rate for early detection is up in the 90% range. One excuse given is that the test is not cancer specific and men with other prostate problems would go through anxiety worrying when they had a raised PSA.
Okay they would do. However they would then have the wonderful experience of being told they do not have cancer but a condition that could be treated instead. On the other hand those, like myself, have the experience of anxiety plus the horrifying scare that the cancer has existed for years, has started to spread and our chances of survival have been reduced. Which experience do you think is the most anxiety causing?
Another excuse presented is around false negatives. It is said that the PSA test does not detect 20% of the cancers. Yes this is a problem but using this to not screen means that the other 80% are being told you do not matter, that early detection for you is not important just go away and die quietly. The other reality is, though, that regular screening would reveal changes in the PSA. That would negate the effect of false negatives as the changes and rate of change reveal the presence of cancer. This is the method used to monitor those who have had treatment to check if the cancer is returning. It is also used in some parts of America for diagnosis reasons.
A third objection presented is around overloading the labs. Well excuse me but I am sorry if my cancer is causing more work for the trust labs. It is also out of date as there is a system, now licensed in this country, involving test strips and a machine to read them. Use of this means that the tests do not need to go to the laboratory but can be done in the Doctors office within a few minutes and at a fraction of the cost of the present system.
Do not get me started on the hoops that younger men have to jump through to be diagnosed as too many, including some doctors, still consider it an old man’s affliction despite evidence of increasing numbers of younger men being diagnosed. They also have the poorest chance of survival partly because the possibility of cancer is ignored when urinary problems arise. They sometimes go through repeat course of antibiotics and then sent for stress counselling when a simple PSA test would reveal if there is problem with the prostate which may or not be cancer but could at least be treated.
There is also a racial element in this with black men in America having a 140% greater chance of developing this cancer. It is only just being investigated in this country.
In short we need to have a screening programme in place to give more men a chance of life. It is why I run the petition on the Downing Street website.
Men deserve the same treatment as women get for breast cancer, the same amount of money spent on research and given the death toll the same amount of publicity and awareness campaigns.
Please help our cause - you can sign an online petition to try to persuade the Government to introduce Prostate Cancer Screening for ALL men between the ages of 40 and 70. Click on the lonk below. Don't let your family, friends, colleagues succumb to this silent killer.
James Nicolson