Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of Queen Victoria, once delivered, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, deceit, and statistics."
If he's a doctor, Disraeli may have been referring to the PSA test for prostate cancer. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine recently reported a study showing that blood testing was cut mortality from the disease up to 20 percent. But this impressive number refers to the relative reduction in mortality.
There are other ways to view the number of deaths. In this study, 162 000 men observed for 10 years.
In those who undergo PSA testing, 261 people die while they are receiving regular treatment 363 people died. 102 excess deaths from 162 000 men are not so impressive.
Another statistic to help the patient decide how the value of PSA tests. To prevent one death of prostate cancer, 1410 men had to undergo testing with the PSA test and an additional 48 men who underwent treatment. This means a giant test program only has a modest effect on mortality rates, and some men will get the treatment and complications that they do not need.
So statistics can be misleading, or like a wise man said, "Statistics can be likened to a drunk man who uses a utility pole, for help stand rather than to illuminate."
Two.
As the sentence that has long been debated between the religious and the scientists, "How many angels can dance on the tip of the needle?"
I do not know the answer. I nor anyone else, nor do they know the best treatment for prostate cancer. Need Wisdom of Solomon the King to answer this question.
A teenager who is believed to be suffering from a malignant tumor that is growing at a fast may be suggested underwent prostatectomy (surgery taking part or all of the prostate gland) radical to get the best chance of survival. For other people might be advisable to use, external radiation, plants the seed of radium into the prostate gland, or freeze the prostate by cryosurgery is a better choice. But at this moment, no one can recommend the best current treatment for all people.
Three.
The late Dr. Willett Whitmore, an expert in the world of prostate cancer at Memorial Hospital in New York, deliver, "Medicine is only slightly affects the survival rate of patients with prostate cancer. The level of survival is more related to the nature of the natural biology of cancer."
In other words, how the cancer ganaskah? Then the pathologist attempts to classify cancer by how fast they grow. Still, knowledge is not exactly true. This causes a great dilemma: how to treat or even not doing anything about prostate cancer treatment.
Four.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, always stressed when treating patients, "First, do not be hurt." This is a very big problem faced by the doctors who treat patients with prostate cancer.
Five.
Suppose you are 70 years old and was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Sometimes it is better to live with "Satan" who you know than with someone / something you have never met. "Satan" who you know is probably a dangerous disease that develops very slowly and will not end your life for years.
In the meantime, you may have died because of something else. Autopsies showed 50 percent of the men who entered the age of 70 years have microscopic cancer cells in their prostate gland. So, remember what a famous urologist, "The more parents always fatal, prostate cancer, only sometimes."
Six.
"Satan" who you do not know maybe some dreadful complications resulting from treatment, such as impotence or can not hold back urine. Radical prostatectomy is the most common causes. Studies show the condition can not hold back urine that often go unreported because people are very aware of peeing in his pants and more to feel ashamed of these disorders than the surgeon who operated on him.
Many patients who have contacted me over the years to mention how difficult it is to adjust to this problem and would have refused surgery if they had known before encountered this complication.
Seven.
Another wise man said, "If you're not distracted by prostate cancer, you will not know what was happening."
So my advice try to get as much information as possible about this disease before deciding which treatment is taken. As Benjamin Disraeli, who threw cautious outlook on the statistics.
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