Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
just had my 6th colonoscopy.
colon cancer "runs" in my family.
1. it is an effective short-term weight loss program.
2. the prep gets better tasting every time.
3. just like anything else:
if you do not know,
you cannot do anything about it.
There are a lot of risks with those screenings... has anyone done the benefit vrs. risk analysis?
Most cancer screenings are by blood draw and in some cases biopsies. They not without risk but the risks are generally small. Ask yourself what are the risks of undiagnosed cancer.
And both chemotherapy and radiation treatment can cause cancer. Can't win for losing.
My son’s cholangiocarcinoma was likely (although can’t prove it) the result of his have radiation as a child for another form of cancer he “beat”…
He had radiation for Hodgkin’s lymphoma stage 3B (unusually for a child his age 9) as well as heavy chemotherapy
That was another reason he couldn’t get a staging MRI under his insurance because the doctors couldn’t prove it WASN’T the same form of cancer without a very invasive surgery as a biopsy—thanks insurance company
No one has yet mentioned the risk of "false positives" from screening procedures. A test that results in a false positive is worse than no test at all because it often leads to unwanted, unneeded, and possibly harmful further testing to find a non-existent problem. It could even lead to unnecessary surgery.
Anyone considering any kind to cancer screening should consider the possibility of false positives and how often they happen (if you can find that data). Then you can compare the risk of false positives with the risk of waiting for symptoms before testing.
In some cases, you might be better off to just wait for symptoms before beginning testing or otherwise you'll be undergoing a lot of medical procedures for nothing or perhaps worse... that actually do you some harm.
A pap smear is a cancer screening tool. Hundreds of thousands of women would have died from cervical cancer, had they not had pap smears.
Skin cancer screening involves - taking your clothes off in front of a doctor who looks at your skin. Zero risk there, unless maybe he's wearing really thick glasses, and standing in front of a window when the sun's out and it happens to zap through those lenses and burns a hole in your body. But - I'll take a wild guess and state that result isn't likely.
A pap smear is a cancer screening tool. Hundreds of thousands of women would have died from cervical cancer, had they not had pap smears.
Skin cancer screening involves - taking your clothes off in front of a doctor who looks at your skin. Zero risk there, unless maybe he's wearing really thick glasses, and standing in front of a window when the sun's out and it happens to zap through those lenses and burns a hole in your body. But - I'll take a wild guess and state that result isn't likely.
You get a biopsy with a potential skin cancer—and that involves some form of knife/cutting—not just a visual assessment
And for seniors Medicare won’t pay if it isn’t cancerous—which keeps down people getting skiing tags cut off and Medicare paying
I saw this today - the question comes up... if only 14% of cancers are found by screening... then maybe we should stop doing them. ..........
There is significant progress being made in cancer screening as well as cancer recurrence. Companies are finding ways to detect cancer cells before there are symptoms of any sort.
Cologuard is an example. Colon cancer testing is improving all the time. Signatera tests for recurring cancer - that's always a worry for cancer patients. It's a blood test and they test for all kinds of cancers.
In years to come companies like Miromatrix say they will be able to prepare pig organs for transplant into humans. They've been using pig valves for a long time. Whole kidneys and livers are next. Then, maybe later, a pig heart.
It wasn't that many years ago that noninvasive prenatal blood tests were not available. Now they are commonplace and enable physicians to get a good look at Junior without sticking a needle into him.
No, I don't think we should give up testing. It's still progressing. Some day there will be a blood test for breast cancer.
I just came across this story where a pig kidney was transplanted into a human last year. It is still experimental, but someday, it is hoped, such things will be common and the waiting line for kidney transplants will disappear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABdXYkl_4jA
Last edited by Listener2307; 12-17-2022 at 09:22 PM..
You get a biopsy with a potential skin cancer—and that involves some form of knife/cutting—not just a visual assessment
And for seniors Medicare won’t pay if it isn’t cancerous—which keeps down people getting skiing tags cut off and Medicare paying
The "screening" was the visual inspection by the doc. The biopsy itself is a diagnostic test once something suspicious was found.
Medicare does pay for biopsies and skin tag removal even if it is done merely for cosmetic or nuisance relief. I've billed them and gotten paid many times.
"Screening tests" are done when it's cheap, easy and has a reasonabley high expectation of finding something. Somebody above mentioned cholangio carcinoma-- a rare disease that occurs usually in a form too small to see even on a CT or MRI until it's advanced. The cost vs benefit ratio of screening for that would be minute. (We will discount the "what price for a life is too high?" argument as being juvenile.)
A screening test must also have an acceptable rate of false negatives and false positives-- a reason stool guaiac and even the new Cologuard tests are kinda useless. They were OK back when a better test (colonoscopy) was not available.
And a screening test should alter outcomes.... If a cancer has a poor treatment expectation, it makes no difference if you find it early. While common sense tells us early detection is better, it's not always obvious. Even now, 50 yrs after screening mammography has been the standard of care, it's not a sure thing that it prolongs lives-- It may be that we just know about the breast cancer for a longer time when diagnosed "early" or improved treatment methods may account for the improved survival rates. (I'm not sayng it isn't worth doing. I'm just pointing out that we don'r really know it's worth it.)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
